A few weeks ago I had an idea to change my facebook name to Chester
Copperpot. There wasn't a very specific reason, other than the idea
just popped into my head, and it just seemed like a fun thing to do. I
didn't think much about it until people started asking me why I would do
such a thing. I realized there were several reasons. Why? Mostly
because, well, why not? Life is a playground, and it's OK to play
around with things, change things, see what happens. If you feel like
wearing a crazy shirt or hat then wear it. Who Cares? If a beautiful
phrase pops into your head that breaks any of the loose rules of poetry
then put it out there, see where it goes, find out what will come back
to you. Be the butterfly that flaps its wings and causes a typhoon on
the other side of the world, or just make yourself chuckle, either
way. My hero Hunter S Thompson never held back from any thought he
had. He acted on every impulse with both disastrous and beautiful
results and I admire him for that. I think we need more of that in
today's world, and stop taking everything so fucking serious all the
time.
But
there was something else, a little voice in the back of my head wanting
to say that online identities have gone too far. We are way too
wrapped up into these identities that are at best a shallow
representation of who we are, and at worst completely fictitious. FB
and social media are ubiquitous and here to stay. There are really
good things about it and really not-so-good things about it; like many
things in life, it is what you make it. But one thing is certain, these
online identities that we project are about as real as the character
who is Chester Copperpot. And there was one specific reaction from
several people that really hit it home for me. "He's having an
identity crisis" What?? Really?? Are we so wrapped up in
our online identites that the only explanation for me changing my name
is that it is an identity crisis? My first reaction was confusion as
to why anyone would assume that, after all I do have my dream job, but
after hearing it from several people I became both intrigued and even
amused. But this is where we are at in today's society. You are your
online identity, and if you play with this identity then it is seen as a
crisis. It is quite fascinating isn't it?
"Who am
I?" Is one of the great philosophical questions of all time. Hell, it
probably started the entire philosophy discipline to begin with. We
are different people at different times in different situations; we grow
and mature, but yet we strive to keep a twinkle of immaturity in our
eyes. The person that meets someone's parents for the first time is
not the person that is at the bar at 2am with their best friends from
college. The person that is represented on a Facebook profile is not
the person that we sit down and have dinner with. Who is the real you?
If you truly want to understand a person, then talk to their
exes. Your ex boy/girlfriends have seen the best (they entered into a
relationship with you) and they've seen the worst (run for the
hills!).
My FB profile is not who I am. It does not
show that I tend to get cranky late at night, it does not show the
multitude of insecurities that run my life. It does not show my worry,
and my doubt, and the stress that I sometimes feel. All of that is a
huge part of who I am and is never expressed online, nor should it be.
No, online I might appear confident, smart, creative, and thoughtful.
But offline I am also stupid, insecure, myopic, and selfish. That is the real me, the person that few people know, but for some reason still love me anyways.
“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the
grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways,
totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy shit…what a ride!’” -Hunter S. Thompson
As I sit here this morning I'm very aware of the tenth anniversary of
the World Trade Center tragedy. We all remember it very clearly, don't
we? I'll add a clip of Tim O'Brien singing his very moving song "More
Love." Let us increase our love, understanding, wisdom, and raise our
consciousness, and let's decrease ignorance, racism, hate, religious
extremism, and the idea that it's "us against them." There is no
"them," there is only "us," because we all live on this planet together
and we need to stop killing each other for stupid reasons.
"Just look out around you, people fightin' their wars
They think they'll be happy, when they settle their scores
Let's lay down the weapons
That hold us a part
Be still for just a minute
Try to open our heart
More love, I can hear our hearts cryin'
More love, I know that's all we need
More love to flow in between us
To take us and hold us and lift us above
If there's ever an answer, it's more love " --Tim O'Brien
What is happiness? I might have an answer. Happiness is what everyone else has and you/me/us/we are trying so hard to get. We live in a culture that has decided that happiness is the final answer and measuring stick to every single endeavor. No matter that it is harder to hold onto than a greasy fire hose in a purple pudding pit.
It's not that everyone is miserable, but I think the important thing to understand is that happiness is fleeting, it comes and it goes--it's there when you don't expect it and it won't stay as long as you want. But when we allow our snowflake storm pseudo-sitcom society to convince us that we should be happy all the time -every second of every day- then we can actually create stress in our daily lives because we "don't feel continuously happy" which snowballs into this country leading the world in anti-depressants but scoring low in overall happiness. What a cycle.
We need to shift the focus of our daily actions from the search of happiness and pleasure to intention. Instead of waking up each day and wondering how we can make ourselves happy, we can wake up and decide on our intention for the day. Let happiness be the bloom of a flower that comes and goes on its own schedule.
Sometimes I wonder if happiness is even real or if it's just an elusive concept. Or maybe it's just a combination of actually feeling relaxed, or engaged, or challenged, or accomplished, or amused or content. Maybe happiness doesn't even exist and we are stressing ourselves to death (literally) for an imagined concept. Wouldn't that be a great irony of life?
Ricky Gervais wrote a really great blog/article about a new project he's working on, and the first half really caught me. He describes how he was the ultimate slacker throughout the first part of his life until he tried something new when he created the English version of "The Office." For the first time in his life he tried his hardest. And he became addicted. Not to success, or work, or money or fame, but to giving it his all. It's interesting that he never claims that he's happier, but you can feel it in his writing - it's palpable.
University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman wrote in his 2002 book Authentic Happiness that happiness involves three components; pleasure (the great googly feeling), engagement (the depth of involvement with one's family, work, romance and hobbies), and meaning (using personal strengths to serve some larger end). And his research shows that one of these components factors much less in overall contentment. And ironically it's the one component that our culture seems to pursue the most: pleasure. Engagement and meaning are much more important to overall satisfaction and, I believe, come from daily intention as well as hard work.
The question of "what makes us happy?" is very interesting because in some ways we don't really know. Hungarian-born psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "cheeks sent me high") who is known for his research on happiness and creativity, as well as the introducing the concept of "Flow" (think Michael Jordan in game 7 of NBA finals) came up with a brilliant experiment on how to find out what really makes us happy. Nearly everyone will always answer "my family, or my children." But when people are asked to rate their moods at different parts of the day (whenever a beeper goes off) we find that children and family are typically the main cause of frustration and stress. There is a disconnect between what people believe makes them happy and what actually makes them happy. Perceived happiness has differentiating factors, such as our memories of experiences can be jaded by the final moments of the experience, and also the very human tendency to romanticize the past...you know, "the good 'ol days"
After family, people will list their work as another main source of happiness, contentment, frustration, or stress. Are we successful? Are we moving forward? Are we financially secure? If not, now do we get there?
Several years ago I got a taste of the corporate world. Now keep in mind that this was in Asheville NC, so it was a very laid back version of the corporate world, complete with shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops (Asheville was ranked as the happiest place in the world!); but for a banjo picker from Sparta NC it was a didactic experience. At one point we all were caught up in "The Secret" where you make vision boards and all the great things in life will come to you because you imagine them coming to you. The Law of Attraction.
This is a a very sexy concept, and was featured multiple times on Oprah (so it MUST be legit!), but there was something that just didn't feel right about it, and it took reading Rick Pitino's fantastic book Success is a Choice for me to be able to vocalize what. Pitino lays out 10 steps in his book, but you can reduce the book to two words: Hard Work. And say what you will about his personal life lately, but when someone coaches a kid who supposedly has no chance to play in the NBA, and works hard enough to become the league's MVP, then I respect that process! Pitino also took a team that was ranked at the bottom of their conference to the final game of the Final Four tournament. He's a master at setting high goals and achieving them and he didn't do it by sitting at his desk staring at a "vision board." He pushed pushed pushed and taught his players that they had the ability to rise to a level they never expected. (the vision board link is to a clip of the great show Always Sunny in Philadelphia)
Getting there early, staying late, pushing yourself past your (imagined) limits, concentrating on weaknesses. These are the things that separate people who have greater amounts of engagement and meaning from people who only search out pleasure, and therefore have more satisfaction and contentment with their lives.
But today's culture preaches the opposite. Is it no fun? Then don't do it! Is it not pleasurable? Then stay away from it! Does it not provide immediate satisfaction? No wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world in everything!
In some ways I consider myself lucky. I get paid to do something that I would gladly do for free. And I can see where people would look at us and think that we "have it made." But what people don't see are the hours, days, months, years, of working our asses off for nothing. It probably adds up to about 30 cents an hour...maybe. People will follow the phrase, "Be Happy" with, "Do What You Love." And I have a problem with that since nobody can just quit their job and "do what they love." It's deceiving. But everyone can work to create a life situation that has more engagement and meaning, and that takes waking up every day with a set intention and path. What is your intention for today?
Notice that Winston Churchill did not say, "Do what you love and you'll never work again." Instead he said, "Find a job that you love and you'll never work again." It's more than a subtle difference.
If you want to attempt to make a living doing something that you enjoy then you have to be prepared to give up a large part of your life to do so. You have to WORK YOUR ASS OFF! It's not always fun, it's not always pleasurable, and the phrase "delayed gratification" becomes an understatement. But it's worth it! Oh man, is it ever worth it! I don't regret a single party that I missed because I was practicing, in fact if I could do it over again, I would go to a lot less parties in college and practice more.
“No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.” – Old Chinese proverb
Search for engagement and meaning in each day. Don't worry about pleasure or happiness, and stop putting things off because they're "hard." Anytime something appears to be too hard imagine what the Navy SEALs go through on a daily basis and proper perspective comes popping past you with perfect precision.
Cognitive Dissonance -- The term that has been pulsing through my head lately with the same lumbering intensity as that damn flashing yellow traffic light that you would sit and watch for 10 minutes with your best friend, stoned, thinking that eventually it would turn green. And much like that light, you can sit there all night, but staring at it will not make it turn green.
It's a term that can be used for many facets of our emotional identities, but it was created within a religious framework and interestingly seems to be the most comfortable staying there. The simple definition is the discomfort a person experiences when holding conflicting ideas simultaneously, or when the reality of an experience doesn't match our pre-conceived expectations of the experience. The question is not, "Do you experience cognitive dissonance?" but "How do you react to it when you do?" It's a fascinating concept and one that has been on my mind for several days now.
In the early 1950's the term and theory were coined when the social psychologist Leon Festinger infiltrated a cult that believed a UFO was going to rescue them at a specific time and date before the earth was destroyed by God. (How many psychology theories have kick-ass beginnings like this?) The theory of cognitive dissonance attempts to predict how people will behave after these fervent beliefs clash with reality. Festinger properly predicted that the group would re-group and actively start proselytizing and recruiting new members which would reduce the dissonance they experienced when the UFO forgot to pick them up. What? Did you expect them to actually realize that the entire thing was a sham and go back to their normal lives? Yeah...not so much.
How does this theory of cognitive dissonance work in our everyday lives? And is it inherently bad or is there a healthy level that can be maintained? (Questions upon Questions...oh how you torment me)
I tried to come up with a spectrum that could give us an idea of what extreme cases of cognitive dissonance look like, and surprisingly (but not really) both examples stayed within the religious paradigm. Without being an expert, I imagine that someone who has achieved (or is working towards) eradicating all vestiges of dissonance would look like a Buddhist monk; sitting in a plain robe meditating on the "power of now" without being disturbed by thoughts of the past or future. Cognitive dissonance is bound to the idea of self, and by giving up your self you are able to release this resistance of what we all know as the ups and downs of daily life (or as the first of four Noble Truths of Buddhism, "Life means suffering). Most of us choose to not go this route as we accept the idea of self, and with it, the peaks and valleys, the loves and losses, the fears and joys of daily life. This causes me to wonder if there's a healthy level of CogDis that can steer us towards achieving either our desired lifelong fulfillment, or at the very least, our daily goals. A level that pushes us to achieve more than we expected. A level that compels us to work hard each day and search for resolution to this dissonance and in doing so become a better person. The resolution of a musical phrase can have much more impact because of the dissonance that precedes it. It is the ebb and flow of life, always searching for resolution.
Deciding on a specific example at the other end of the spectrum isn't as easy, since high-levels of CogDis can take many different forms; but I've found that the choices tend to stay within the religious paradigm, since religion is the one place that extreme beliefs can hold strong roots against all rational thought and scientific evidence to the contrary. Was there any evidence that the UFO was coming? No. Is there any evidence that the earth is only 6000 years old, was created in 6 days, and dinosaurs lived alongside the first descendants of Adam and Eve? No. Yet people will defend these beliefs until the bitter end, even giving up their lives for them.
(A quick note: Although this theory works well within the religious paradigm, it is not specifically relegated to it. Smokers are a good example of people who deal with high levels of CogDis. Most all smokers will claim the desire to live a long and healthy life, but their daily addiction to the poison of nicotine directly clashes with that desire of being healthy. Smokers will attempt to reduce their level of CogDis by saying things like, "Well, we all die from something! (wink wink nudge nudge);" which is an absurd rationalization for poisoning yourself, but they just don't have many other options.)
So what is a good example of extreme levels CogDis for our spectrum? Obviously the people that sat in the dark waiting for the UFO to pick them up. But what about someone like Ted Haggart, the Evangelical pastor who repeatedly preached about the evils of homosexuality while paying a gay prostitute for sex and drugs for up to 3 years? Haggert had to experience very extreme levels of CogDis, as did the multitudes of Catholic priests that repeatedly molested children for decades. I can't think of a more extreme example than this; someone dedicates their entire life to what is supposed to be the purest path and yet still commit what is easily the worst crime against fellow humans.
OK, so you and I fall somewhere in-between Buddhist Monks and pedophile priests. I've had worse realizations!
It's a funny thought, but it doesn't matter at all. What matters is how we deal with our CogDis in accordance with our own daily lives. Are we honest with ourselves and, just as importantly, with others around us? Do we know deep down of a weakness that we can work to address? Do we need to adjust our daily habits to more closely resemble our ideas of ourselves and what we want to achieve before it is too late? Or are we just telling ourselves these things and allowing unhealthy levels of CogDis disrupt the balance of our emotional lives?
Like I said, it's a very interesting concept, and one that can benefit us if used to broaden our self-awareness. Obviously we (as in the non-Buddhist monks) are not able to live without some level of CogDis in our lives, but I wonder how we can channel it properly to be advantageous? That's the American way, right? Use everything we can to move on up! Is it what we feel when we try our best to live up to our self-expectations, so the reality of the experience is in accordance with what we expected out of ourselves? Is this why I would sit and practice for 8 hours a day? So the actual experience of playing music would be as joyful as I expected it to be? Possibly, or maybe I just didn't want to allow the banjo to win.
I've challenged myself to be more aware of the reasons for CogDis in my life and either resolve the issue or channel it to my favor. If I can reduce daily stress by even 1% then it is worth it. Who knows, maybe I'll even start enjoying people's company...that would be a miracle. Just kidding, I love all of y'all...mostly.
Update: Aug 27th
Reading through some really great terms from the mesmerizing book "1984" I came across this. Very fitting for this discussion. And once again this book proves to be one of the most prophetic books the English language has ever known.
Here is how Winston Smith described doublethink in the novel: "To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.'
What is the state of classical music today? Well Joshua Bell is arguably the greatest violin player alive today, but if you’ve heard of him it’s probably either through the work he did in the amazingly beautiful movie “The Red Violin,” or for the experiment that he was a part of in Washington DC as he went undercover as a busking street musician in the Metro Line. This was a rather genius experiment that came from (no ordinary) staff writer Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post, and had a pretty simple premise; will anyone notice a virtuoso musician playing some of the most beautiful music ever written on one of the greatest instruments ever made (1713 Stradivarius worth over $3 Million)? Or as Weingarten elegantly states it, “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”
I’m not sure if this YouTube video is considered “viral,” but millions of people have seen it. I watched it and immediately made fleeting and superficial judgments of all the people that walked by and ignored Bell. Obviously, doing what I do, I have a vested interest in the outcome and harsh visceral criticism of all the people too busy to notice something so beautiful. My artistic high-horse is groomed and saddled, and we can do impressive tricks as we ride around this land together. But what I didn’t expect was to find beauty somewhere completely different; Weingarten’s original piece that was published in the Post that went along with the video. It didn’t so much shed “new light” on the experience but completely turn it on its head, shake the change out of its pockets, and walk to the push-button enlightenment vending machine (right next to the Coke one) and purchase a tiny slice.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then what’s a video worth? A thousand and one? But Weingarten’s piece clobbers both of them! Instead of taking the easy way out and keeping the attention on all the people who didn't stop and hear the music Weingarten focused on the question of “What is beauty?” and it’s fraternal twin, “How do we recognize it?” Any great philosopher has considered it, and most have opinions on it, but Weingarten settles with Kant because he’s “obviously right.” Weingarten writes:
"In his Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, Kant argued that one's ability to appreciate beauty is related to one's ability to make moral judgments. But there was a caveat. Paul Guyer of the University of Pennsylvania, one of America's most prominent Kantian scholars, says the 18th-century German philosopher felt that to properly appreciate beauty, the viewing conditions must be optimal. "Optimal," Guyer said, "doesn't mean heading to work, focusing on your report to the boss, maybe your shoes don't fit right." So, if Kant had been at the Metro watching as Joshua Bell play to a thousand unimpressed passersby? 'He would have inferred about them,' Guyer said, 'absolutely nothing.'"
Wow, that sound you just heard was me, hitting the ground after I fell off that high-horse.
Well, the true beauty of the experiment is Weingarten, and his passion for writing, thinking, and searching for the truth. His article, which won a Pulitzer, is extraordinary and shows the need for great journalism to survive this perfect storm of free content, tweeters, and the reign of Rupurt Murdoch and Faux News.
Writing is a beautiful art and I think Weingarten matched Bell word-for-note.
One of the aspects of the article that caught me by surprised was Bell stating that when he began playing he was a little nervous. Here is one of the most accomplished musicians alive today (and we’ll set aside the fact that the average person on the street has never heard of him, that’s our loss, not his). He has soloed with the greatest orchestras all over the world and composers even claim, “He plays like a god!” But as he was setting up in the DC metro station he experienced a feeling that doesn’t happen often; he was nervous! “It wasn’t exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies. I was stressing a little,” he says. A man who is paid as much as $1000 a minute started to appreciate people even looking up to acknowledge him, and specifically remembers when someone threw in a whole dollar and not just change. I believe every musician in the world understands this feeling. (he made $32.17 in 45 mins) Is the human need for recognition and appreciation so permanent, as if it’s coded into our genes, that one of the greatest musicians alive today will be genuinely thankful for a glance up, or a dollar in the case, or for someone who actually stops to listen? I find some comfort in knowing that Joshua Bell and I occasionally feel the same thing as we play music, and I would never have known this if Gene Weingarten didn’t also ask the question, “What is beauty?”
Here is one of my favorite songs and this is how I personally discovered Joshua Bell, by the record he made with Sam Bush, Mike Marshall, and Edgar Meyer called "Short Trip Home." One of my favorite stories about how music ultimately transcends classification comes from this album. Bell told all of his friends that he was "making a bluegrass album with Sam Bush," and Bush told all of his friends he was "making a classical album with Joshua Bell." What I love about that story is that they were both right.
A good friend of mine posted one of the most detailed descriptions of the Navy Seals raid on Osama bin Laden’s property the very day before a helicopter with 22 of those SEALs was shot down, and all were killed.I know these details because I am utterly fascinated by these guys, the ultimate warriors.And while I am completely enthralled with the military Special Forces I am completely against the very idea of war.How can I hate the war but I love the warrior?This past year I’ve had to confront this dichotomy of feelings, and ask myself how can a person be so against something yet still be so amazed by the instruments of it.Could I celebrate banjos but dislike the music they make?Could I love strawberries but hate their taste?Could I exalt a writer but express abhorrence at all their work?I think not.Yet, I know I’m not alone in these feelings of both war and the warrior.I had these discordant points of view pointed out to me early this year by an ex-girlfriend who was adamantly opposed to the death penalty, as am I.It is one of the few hot-button social issues that my mind is made up on.But when these SEALs charged into the compound and ultimately killed the big scary terrorist number one, I gave a “way to go SEALs” shout-out in a public forum.It was quickly pointed out that I cannot be against the death penalty but yet cheer for the providers of that ultimate sentence.I did agree, but it forced me think about how I reached this place, and what path brought me to those feelings.Some introspection was obviously in order!Why am I fascinated by the Navy SEALs?I traced it back.Most of us guys who grew up in the ‘80’s watched Chuck Norris in “Delta Force”
or Sylvester Stallone as “Rambo”
or my father who watched Bruce Lee and John Wayne.And before that we played with our GI Joes, or we were outside “playing” war with our friends in the woods.I, along with about every other guy I grew up with, have been idolizing warriors since we could hold a toy gun.In fact, an amusing thing to watch is well meaning, but slightly over-protective (or in my case hippie) parents try to keep their boys from playing with toy guns, or playing “war.”It’s damn near impossible!It’s ingrained in us, and the more I thought about it the more I realized it’s just a pure biological evolutionary trait that has been passed down through the generations reaching back thousands of years.We have a massive yearning to be the toughest and baddest guy around from a young age so we can protect our “clan” and give our genes the best opportunity to be passed to the next generation.Males have a desire to emulate the alpha-male of the “clan,” but in today’s world, with today’s media, our “clan” is much bigger so we look to the Rambo’s of Hollywood or the Navy Seal’s of real life.And this is only speaking of the most primal of urges, survival.Obviously there are many other traits everyone looks up to as a child, but there is no stronger urge in the human body and mind than survival.One has to look no further than the fantastic and moving story of Aron Ralston.But thousands of years of evolutionary traits be damned, I am absolutely fascinated by these guys.They are the elite male archetype.One of the best books I’ve read in a long time was the story of Marcus Luttrell, “Lone Survivor,” who was one of four SEAL’s to take on over 100 Taliban fighters and was the only one to make it out alive.This bears repeating; four SEAL’s fought over 100 heavily armed Taliban fighters for HOURS over open ground before taking casualties. Here is the team.
This isn’t about war, it’s about the human will to survive.The story would be amazing even if it were pure fiction, the fact that it is true leaves any reader with a sense of awe at what a human is capable of surviving when pushed to the ultimate limits of life.6 months later I still get chills just thinking about it…but war still sucks.
Recording is a very interesting process for a musician, and after several albums I've begun to have some interesting insights into the evolution of recording "your sound" or “your voice”. We all remember being 8 years old, or so, and hearing your voice recorded for the first time and thinking, "I don’t sound like that!” Well the process of recording music is very similar. Most musicians, regardless of natural talent, usually hear themselves recorded for the first time and think, "Wow, I don't sound as good as I thought". Mostly because it's hard to hear the weaknesses while we are playing. When I sit and play an Earl Scruggs song, I really HEAR Earl playing it. But when I hear it played back to me I hear only me, and I'm not even close to Earl, and it can be quite deflating. I've realized that a large part of being successful at recording is learning what you sound like, and start embracing it. And this takes some time. Recording can be one of the most mentally exhausting experiences you've ever been through. The first Wiseapple album was recorded live with no opportunities for overdubs or "punches" (where you fix certain notes or phrases). So the 4 of us had to play the song PERFECTLY, at the same time. Getting 4 people to do anything perfectly at the same time is harder than herding hummingbirds.
I remember thinking to myself several times, "Is this even possible?” The level of focus it takes to record an album in two days is unlike anything I had ever been through. Not only do you have to play the song perfectly (or as close as possible to perfect) but you have to keep the energy up on the 5th take so that it sounds like it is the 1st take. It's amazing where your mind wants to wander to during the process. But several albums later I've learned to embrace the things that I'm good at, stay away from the things I'm not so good at, and most importantly know when to take chances and when to play it safe. I know when I can do better and also when I'm not going to do any better, and express that to the producer with a very polite, "Screw you buddy, you come play it better” But said with a flowing voice and a slight hint of British accent, like a butterfly getting ready to land on a big pile of poop. (Fact: butterflies LOVE poop. go to a dairy farm one summer and see)
As we were recording the last album I was sitting in the studio waiting for another take to start and I remember having somewhat of a realization that my playing is going to sound like me no matter how hard I try to sound like Earl or Bela, and the best thing for me to do is not only embrace it but to actually enjoy it. It’s me and I can’t change that fact. What a huge relief!
