Under the Surface

There is a way that we know things "under the surface." Some people call it intuition. Or following your gut. Or instinct. I contend that this is a very real and extremely useful way of knowing. I like to call it "being honest with yourself." There are times I have failed to be honest with myself in relationships. If I had listened to messages under the surface I would have known that certain things would not work out. On the flip side, how many times have I ignored positive messages and missed out on amazing opportunities?

So how exactly does one tap into this way of knowing? I think a lot of it is about paying attention to feelings, something that men are not often encouraged to do. It is a skill we have to work hard at. Everyone feels, though. It is just a matter of noticing it, naming it, and giving voice to it.

Example:
About a year and a half ago, I was walking on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston and passed a (seemingly homeless) man. He was lying on the ground, backpack still on his back, and a couple people were standing around him. I do not know what happened, but it appeared the man had collapsed. I looked up and saw an ambulance approaching. The situation appeared to be under control, but I found myself compelled to stop and check. I fought the urge, however, and just kept walking. I was in a hurry. Had to get to class. It wasn't my business. What help could I offer anyway? It took all of thirty seconds for me to forget the whole experience. I went about my business as usual.

It wasn't until that night as I lay in bed that this melancholy enveloped me. The image of the fallen man came back and I felt terrible for behaving so apathetically towards him. It was too late to change my response to the situation, but the events and my actions rippled through my consciousness like a stone dropped in a pond. I brought the scenario to a mentor of mine, a psychology professor. His stance is that these kinds of situations are little mini "wake-up calls." We find ourselves in a nonordinary situation and momentarily "wake up" from our ordinary way of walking around in the world. Often, we return to our routines with little thought or consideration. But every now and then, we experience the ripple effect, these lingering waves of feeling which call us to make meaning of them.

"So what is the meaning?" I asked
"You get to decide."
"I guess I just don't know what to make of it."

After some thought, he offered a potential explanation that perhaps the lesson to take away from the experience is simply that I care, that people matter to me, and that I can be moved by other people's plights.

Up until this point, I had walked around in the world feeling disconnected, isolated, and a little bit cold. Unsympathetic. I let other people mirror that reality for me. A part of me, however, knew that I am really a compassionate person who cares deeply about the wellbeing of others. You might say that this reality lay under the surface. My experience with the homeless man on the street was an opportunity for this under-the-surface knowing to show up.

I encourage you to pay attention to the way feelings show up in your life. Listen to these feeling states and try to discern the meaning of them. It doesn't have to be some profound revelation. As someone much wiser than I once said, "Sometimes just the fact 'that you care' is big medicine."

YouTube

I think there are advantages to the ease of access we now have to music, videos, and information from around the world. I also think it's a travesty how many people do not seem to value art anymore.

I have never uploaded someone else's performance to YouTube but I certainly have watched other people's uploads. I usually justify it by one of the following reasons:

1 - I'm already a paying customer of a particular artist, so watching a pirated video or song here and there is no big deal

2 - This particular thing hasn't been released yet - or I haven't purchased it yet - but I fully intend to.

3 - This particular artist and the record label they are signed to already have bagillions of dollars, so I don't care if this is illegal or not.

I'm not saying these are good reasons. It's just how I justify it to myself.

Here's what happens quite often. A musical artist puts together some sort of release. They put up on YouTube one track or one performance from the release as a sort of teaser. You're supposed to watch it, see how awesome it is, then go buy it and watch the whole thing. But then some asshole fanboy gets a copy and uploads the whole thing to YouTube. Then the whole world gets to watch how awesome it is without actually supporting the people who put the time and effort into the product. It eliminates the need to purchase products and drives down the value of art in our society. This may save you money and time, but it is a travesty.

What REALLY pisses me off is when some schmuck takes advantage of other artists by stealing their videos, uploading them to YouTube, and saying, "Hey! Check out MY stuff, too!" It's just another example of how people can be lazy and still feel entitled to something. Also, by playing illegally uploaded music on YouTube, YOU are supporting this kind of mentality. Lazy and entitled.

It's one thing to try and share an artist you love with the rest of the world. But using them to promote your own crappy music is deplorable behavior.

I think we are lazy when we listen to music on YouTube. Personally, I still buy CDs because I think the listening experience is enjoyable and worth investing in. You don't go to the library to flip through books with pictures of paintings and sculptures. You go experience the artwork where it is installed and (hopefully) where the light hits it just right.

Please continue to use YouTube to search, explore, test the waters, and discover new artists. Continue to use it to enjoy art. Please stop using it to rip people off by uploading content you do not own. And please stop watching the illegal content that other idiots are uploading. And PLEASE boycott any person who uses someone else's hard work to promote their own shitty music.

I'm talking about this guy, who has resorted to uploading songs from the latest Devin Townsend DVD By A Thread. It may seem like a clever way to reach new fans. But it makes you an asshole.

Furthermore, if I ever see you host a party "DJ'd" by YouTube playlists (or Grooveshark or Pandora or anything of the sort), I will not hesitate to take a hammer to your precious computer. You can buy a new one with all the money you saved by not paying for music.

Creative Day

Diet on a creative day:

Breakfast: 2 fried eggs, 2 pieces of toast, 1/2 a grapefruit, 2 cups of coffee

Lunch: Coffee

Dinner: Peanut butter & jelly sandwich, 1/2 a grapefruit, dirty chai, 1 cup of coffee

Become

You will become
That which you are
If you decide
That's what you want

You get to choose
If you will lose
Do or do not --
There is no "try."

Intentional

Oh, to be so intentional with playing that even the mistakes are supposed to happen. This is the goal of all goals.

C.K.

Louis C.K. is a genius.

Every now and then I watch an episode of his show, Louie, on FX. I highly recommend it if you can tolerate lots of profanity and quite explicit references to sexual acts. What really sets this comedian apart, at least in my mind, is his ability to be ridiculous and absurd yet still speak about everyday truths of being a human being. And I mean...DEEP truths. They're just often disguised in the show as sex jokes or thoughts on masturbation - also a part of the human experience whether you like it or not (or whether you like seeing and hearing about it on a television screen).

ANYWAY, I finally got around to watching the season 2 finale tonight. SPOILER ALERT

Quick background. In the show, Louie plays himself, a single, middle-aged father who has a career in New York as a comedian. There are lots of father and dating themes in the show.

Back in season one, Louis meets a single mother, Pamela, at parents' night at their kids' school. They develop a friendship. They hang out while their kids have play dates and that sort of thing, but they're just friends. At some point in season two, Louie expresses that he has feelings for her. These feelings are not reciprocated -- anyone every been in that situation?

Anyway, so in the season finale, Louie takes Pamela to the airport so she can catch a flight to Paris. At the airport, she explains the nature of the trip. Her son had gone to visit her deadbeat ex-husband who has never expressed interest in having a relationship with his son. Now all of a sudden, the two of them have bonded and the son wants to be with his dad in Paris. So, Pamela is going to try and salvage the relationship also. She is NOT coming back. Louis is understandably upset.

He reminds her how her ex-husband is a "shitty person." This is just a "whim." She stands there and tells Louis to move on and get over her. She knows he has feelings for her, but she doesn't have them back. "You're a nice, guy Louis" but this will never work. Blah bla bla. You can't help but feel terrible for Louie as he stands there and says, "I will wait for you" even though she has NO intention of coming back. He starts to tear up, and that's the final straw for Pamela. She turns and gets in line for security. Then, there's the most awkward, hilarious, and heart-wrenching scene in television history as Louie watches her slowly make her way through the security queue. They can see each other every time the line faces his way. He just stands there and watches with tears in his eyes like a sad dog. Then he watches her climb an escalator...painfully slowly, I might add. At the top, she finally turns and waves. He just stands there.

She calls out, "Wave to me, Louie! Wave to me"

"What!"

"Wave to me!"

"WHAT! I...WHAT!?"

"WAVE TO ME!"

"Wait for you?"

"Yeah. Wave to me."

(this goes on for a while...)

Waving now, "I'LL WAIT FOR YOU, PAMELA! I'LL WAIT FOR YOU!"

They wave goodbye, not understanding the other. We then see Louie walking out of the airport with the faintest smile on his face. Poor guy.

Very little is clear in life, you know? There's always the baggage we carry. Feelings we feel for someone who doesn't feel them back. Information we lack or information we have but don't know what to do with. Communication that gets jumbled by distance and differences and misunderstandings. Life can be an absurd mess of random shit that we do our best to make sense of. Sometimes, we do a pretty good job. Other times, we fail abysmally.

Louis C.K. is really good at showing us the latter, a side of things we can often relate to (60% of the time, every time), and letting us laugh at it. It's ridiculous. BUT, we keep learning and improving. Life goes on...until it doesn't. All we can do is do our best in the meantime.


Incidentally, Season 3 of Louie premiers tomorrow night, June 28th, at 10:30 PM. Check out the official website HERE.

What am I supposed to do now?

Doesn't sound right when I put it out there.
Curious disconnect between my words
And their intended meaning.
What would it take to be a Meaning Master?

One who says what he thinks
Expresses what he feels.
Then, what if no one cares to listen?
What if the meaning is lost on some third party

Who inevitably fills in the spaces with a unique personal story?
Then I wouldn't be some ingenious crafter of truth
But telling a pre-existing story with different words
And my syntax.

Who is this fabled master of meaning?
A word weaver with utmost sensibility who knows what to say and how
Regardless of who hears and who listens
Regardless of who cares

Or perhaps the intended eyes and ears predetermine
Precisely what must be spoken.
Precisely what must be spoken?
An ancient tale with a new spin
Or an original one disguised as old?
Or the story is of trivial significance -


At least on its own.


The master inflects a tone of urgency
Underneath the surface
Something else is at work here.
The game is to prod and to point, but never to reveal...


Reveal me this: 


What is the purpose?
Who is hiding behind it all
Writing the rules of this game
Artists and poets and, hell, even scientists play?

No one.
Or everyone - doesn't matter.
The answer never got anyone anywhere
It's the question

What am I supposed to do now?