Unspoken Truths

Oftentimes in my life, I have found myself in a position where I don't have the vocabulary to fully express how I feel about something. In those moments, when my mastery of language fails, I turn to that medium that I have dedicated myself to:  Music.

Music, to me, is that one remaining bastion of pure truth in a world of deceitfulness and corruption. It is the outlet of expression for the soul that bypasses our ability to cognitively recognize and communicate what it is we feel. It's almost as if empathy flows forth, as does compassion, sorrow, anger, whatever it is I need to express to the world around me comes out in the subtleties and finesse of performance. It's so cathartic, in fact, that many times I forget when there actually is an audience. It becomes a matter of connecting to God and allowing that force to speak through me for a time, it truly is the highest spiritual experience I've been able to attain. How wonderful is this gift I've been given, that not only am I able to express what I feel, but I'm also able to go back to the composers that have left behind those inscriptions of what they felt at a time, or their world condition, and filter that through the lens of my perception and experience and make it relevant again! In what other way can we be so connected to our past, our lineage, the great achievements of history, than to know that the pitches and rhythms I produce are the same that were brought forth into being tens, if not hundreds of years ago, and were heard by the people of that generation.

It is communication at its paramount, the material through which people can connect, all over the world, and savor their emotions knowing that they are understood, and are not alone. What greater thing could you offer a man in his time of sorrow than to play a song that shows exactly how he feels? You couldn't accomplish that with words in a hundred years. Words are clumsy, they have multiple meanings, they can be misunderstood, they can be twisted, taken out of context, but most prevalent is that they can fail to truly express what we wish them to express. That is not true of music, and it is the reason why when I have something that is of utmost importance to me to communicate to someone else, I use it before I speak, and they understand.

It is the white light in my world, that unadulterated truth to which I have devoted my life to the understanding of, and sharing with the world. As I learn more, and experience more, and sink deeper into it's warmth, I become closer to what I feel is the ultimate in the human experience.

What is the fire that burns, but does not consume?
It is truth.
And I speak my truth through music.

The Beauty of Absence

It truly never ceases to amaze me on my journey through life how each and every day there is some change effected upon us. Whether this is something minute, or grand and life changing, every day the experience is slightly different. As humans, we tend to dwell overmuch on those changes we see as 'negative' throwing out those events that have worked out to our favor. One of the most potent niches that this type of behavior is prevalent in is that of loss. For some reason, regardless of what it is we have lost, we view that missing person or thing as a depreciation of our overall situation in life. Perhaps it is a matter of comfort, that people resist change of any sort. Perhaps it is greed, in that they wish to retain all they gain and lose nothing. Or perhaps it is merely a representation of the human condition:  that we cannot wholly perceive the circumstances that have preceded the change, nor the intended result of it. (This is being written on the premise that you agree that there IS an intent behind the mechanisms of the world, but that's a discussion for another article.) What this leaves us with, if we react as men tend to do, is either anger, sadness, or confusion. I posit that instead of those ways of thinking, you instead see each change as a new open door, an opportunity. For every space that is vacated in your life, there is a void that you can fill with whatever you choose. Many men see this and try to fill it with material goods, or drugs, or false love, because they fear that space. It makes us uneasy to see emptiness, particularly in what we view as important stations in our lives. If you must fill that space with something, fill it with what will bring you the greatest betterment, happiness, and peace. Ultimately, however, I wish you to consider leaving those spaces vacant. Peer into that void, find out what it is about what you've lost that makes you feel incomplete, and strive to externalize those things that are not directly part of your self.

You find most often that those people who are most at peace are those who have least. This is not because they have become peaceable with their misfortunes in life, it is that they understand the nature of the absence of something. To find out what is NOT part of you is the most efficient way to figure out which elements are. After you've lost everything that is not your essence, those things that remain are the truest parts of you. Do not underestimate the importance of loss, absence, and space. In these times, men afford themselves far to little of any of those. Whatever we lose, collectively, as humans, it cannot beat us. We are strangely temporal beings in that fact, we understand that something that was no longer is, and yet we have the capacity to take that concept and move forward with it. The one thing that has held us back is our short memories. Know that as individuals, every experience you endure, or enjoy, impacts all of us in a profound way.

But I digress. Appreciate your losses, mourn them while you must, but then drink deeply of the wisdom and compassion that you can gain from the experience.

Absence truly can be beautiful.