I’m Not That Important

Posted by admin on May 25th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

At 10,080 vertical feet sits the ghost town of “Independance.”  Wedged between the high life of Aspen to it’s west and the beautiful town of Twin Lakes to it’s east, “Independance” was an old gold mining town…literally in the middle of the wilderness.  The town was discovered and eventually serviced by the very narrow, now only open about 4-5 months a year cause of the danger of driving it in the snow, “Independance Pass” highway.

This highway stretches well over 60 miles of insanely narrow twists and turns, sometimes without a gaurdrail to prevent you and your vehicle from plumitting thousands of feet below you.  I imagine tht that those who lived in the town of Independance arrived by horse and buggy…and had very little choice but to stay awhile.

Though I moved to Aspen in november to scratch my ski itch and re-evaluate somethings in my life, I have enjoyed exploring some of the unreachable reaches of the Rockies that, because of the spring melt, have now become reachable.  “Independence” is one such place.

As you can see from the above photo, there are still some miners cabins left in the ghost town.  Exploring this town, literally in the middle of the wilderness, and thinking about the people that must have lived here…wondering if familys and kids had to weather the intense mountain winters at such high elevation, it made me think about how much importance I place on myself in my life.

If there is one burden that I seem to be carrying in my life, it is the burden of self importance.  I think it’s natural for all infants to desire, unconscioulsy that the world revolve around them.  They know nothing except their needs in the moment…food, water, love from mother and father, attention, affection, and needing it NOW.  In addition to this, because they are infants, and don’t learn the ways of the world, their equation of love is much different than a healthy adult.  A new born baby, no fault on it’s own, knows love only as being the center of it’s caretakers world.  This, if a child is raised healthily will begin to evolve into a healthier idea of love…but in 99% of humans, myself included, there still remain parts of us that haven’t yet had a chance to evolve.

All the people who lived in Indepence are all dead.  Obviously.  Nobody knows their name, most people in the world, don’t even know that a town like that existed.  The fullness of up to 1,500 peoples lives is embedded in the silence of the mountains, and in the writings of archealogists.  It doesn’t extend beyond that.  And yet, Independence is really a micro-cosm of our world and our lives.

When we are children we fantasize about being super-heros, or sports stars, movie stars or famous singers and dancers.  Some might fantasize about being president, or some kind of political or culteral leader.  As we grow our perversions are circumscribed about being the best in our chosen field of an elementary nature…the best at basketball in our 5th grade class, the president of student counsil in middle school, class president, prom queen etc. These accomplishments, are, like our newborn nature, at the epicenter of our universe.  Fundamental for development yes, but again, signposts for the egotism of our culture and our lives.

No 4 year old child fantasizes about growing up, becoming a successful lawyer in a well-to-do law firm in Indiana, make 250 thousand dollars a year and have a family.  As we grow older, either the neccesities of the world, or our psychological evolution begs us to let go of our fantasies of public success and move more towards the realities of the “real world.”

However, for most, our self-importance plays out in more subtle ways.  Our obsession with celebrities is perhaps the most key way that we are all obessesed with ourselves.  Fame is the biggest culural signpost that we are all terrified of dying.  We actually believe to some degree that famous people don’t die.  Their “legacy” lives on.  We strive to be famous, to leave our mark in whatever way we can because we don’t want to face the fact that ultimately, we are as unimportant as the moss that gross, or the moths that fly into the flame.  On a personal level, as an artist I actually believe that if I “make it” then I will indeed have “made it.”  Beaten God so to speak…I’ll last forever.  But in reality I would only be, on a larger scale, the Friday evening entertainment in one of the three saloons in the small mining town of Independance.

So what’s the point?  If life is empty and I am an equal to the slug that slugs or the hawk that hawks, what’s the point.  Why not just think that “life’s a bitch and then you die so fuck the world and let’s get high?”

Well… because in my experience, when I let go of “myself” so to speak…I serve the “One.”  When I let go of my self importance, and my egotism and need to feel special and be idolized and thought great…I am actually FAR more able to be creative and serve others with the specific gifts that I have to give in the world.  When I forget myself, I am liberated.  As an artist, when I write and I know that the song I am writing is just like a shit I am taking…and as soon as I am done taking that shit, I will move onto the next one…my songs, my performances, my everything is shrouded in the light of true creation…and thus, who I am being int he world is a gift to others…enhances the mystery of their lives, blooms open the world with more of the Love that is the essence of this mystery.   And in this way, emptiness serves me.  Emptiness sets me free from myself and because of emptiness I can truly be my SELF.  And when I am being my SELF, I can make a difference for others.  I can “change the world” so to speak.  Nobody can make a difference if they are doing it from the sole place of being important.  All great leaders lead from a place of already being dead.

And so I do my best to find the most amount of gold in my little mining town of independance.  Regardless of whether I am remembered for it.

The “It” Kings and Tantric Love Music

Posted by admin on May 7th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

In the Summer of 2004, Trey Ananastsio, lead singer and guitar player of Phish promised Charlie Rose that he would NEVER get back together with his musical soul mates.  A famous last word, “Never” can sometimes come back and bite us in the ass…but nevertheless I understood where he was coming from, and didn’t believe him.  

I also had a feeling that some of the reasons, (not all)  he was giving Charlie for the

bands “final” break-up were dancing around the truth.

I know that family had a part in it, and definitely being tired out, perhaps bored, not their best anymore had a big part in it as well…but I also think that drugs played the biggest role in their post hiatus demise.  

Why do so many musicians turn to drugs?  

There are so many reasons, but I am going to talk about one that maybe doesn’t usually get talked about so much.  (I could be wrong…but I’ve never heard it spoken of that much)  

I have had the priveledge of seeing some of the finest musicians in the world in concert.  Last october I saw Keith Jarret, Gary Peacock, and Jack De Johnette play at Carnegie Hall…I have seen Larry Corryel, Christian McBride…I have seen Joe Lovano, Paul Motion, Bill Frissel…at my college I had the priveledge of seeing some of the best classical musicians in the world…

All these concerts were amazing.  Truly extraordinary musical experiences that I will remember forever no doubt.  None of them compare to Phish concerts.  

And, I feel totally ridiculous saying that.  I feel like a huge hippy doofus admitting that actually…but it’s true…at least for me.  And the musicianship of the four members of Phish is not even close to the same ballpark as the afore mentioned musicians.  However, in my opinion…they are masters of “It” moments.  They are the “It” kings if you will and are able to sustain “It” for incredible amounts of time.  They are the Tantric Gods of Music.  

All joking aside…my experiences with Phish have teetered far beyond the edge of Wittgenstein’s idea of the “sublime.”  They have taken me (without the aid of psychedelic drugs) past the boundary line of feeling myself as a separate entity from the music and have tossed me into a whirlwind of ecstatic and indescribable bliss.  Being at a great phish concert (they aren’t always great) is very much like being on a 2 and a half hour roller coaster ride that only stops for the 20 minutes set break halfway through.  They take you “there,”…they make “It” happen and keep “It” sustained for endless periods of time.  

Now  if I feel this way as an audience member…i can only imagine how it must feel to be the people doing it.  If I feel this way listening to Phish, what euphoria, what bliss must Trey, Mike, Fish, and Page be experiencing on a nightly basis?  I read an interview with Page once where he says that everynight he has an average of 1-2 “peak” moments but many times has way more.  If those peak moments are anything like the peak moments I have experienced…that’s an IMMENSE amount of euphoric energy to contain in one body.  And the crux is that the come down must be as intense.  

When I was five years old…I literally started looking forward to my birthday two months in advance.  I could barely sleep the night before my birthday and when my “party” was over…you could probably say that I entered a mild state of temporary depression. 

Coming down from a concert where you are the players, the creators, the purveyors of sometimes, insurmountable joy, day in, day out, year in, year out must be somewhat equivalent to being addicted to narcotics and dealing with the up and the come down of that addiction.  In addition to that…when you have fans who know how “high” you’ve been able to take the music…and come see you, expecting that high…that’s quite a large amount of pressure to “produce.”  Thousands of people, riding on you every night to pull magical out of your ass…  

It makes sense to me why so many musicians turn to drugs…feeding their addiction to peak moments…and doing whatever it takes to avoid the come down.  

We forget that our first act as human beings, our first breath, is a microcosm of the nature of life.  We inhale and expand, taking oxygen into our lungs and then we exhale and contract, releasing carbon dioxide into the air.  We take what we need from the oxygen to survive, and with the expulsion of carbon dioxide, we remove what is not needed and harmful to the body.  

The universe actually breaths in the same way, although on a much greater scale.  Life is very much like a huge breath, and on a smaller level, a series of millions of both little and big breaths.  Contraction feels scary…if we let go of our breath to the point where if feels like we hardly have any air left to breath out…it feels very much like we are drowning.  ”The come down” of life experiences…like the end of my 5 year old birthday can feel very similar.  We forget that we are simply doing nature.  We are exhaling.  We have taken in what we need…and if we held it or sustained it…it would be harmful to us.