blog – Page 17 – The Conscious Pilgrim

gratitude for the struggle

“What if everything was like meditation? We don’t approach meditation with the furious intensity that we take on every other task, but we still tend to acknowledge it’s importance (assuming we have a practice). We don’t say “I AM GOING TO MEDITATE SO HARD RIGHT NOW” beat our chests and stomp around like so many heavy-lifting gym primates.”

We’ve all heard the expression at one inopportune time or another: “If it was easy, everyone would do it.” I’ve lived by this for a long time, and without self-aggrandizing, I can say with honesty and humility that I have accomplished a lot.

Further to the point, I can say that with my body type and propensity to overeat; or worse, binge-eat, that if I am having an off day, or a rough few days wherein my portion control is whack and I’m feeling undisciplined in my workouts – I can see it in the mirror. When I was obese, this was a curse – but now, it’s a blessing.

But I got slapped with a crazy concept recently.

Instead of constantly pining away at something, and “trying hard or “digging in” or putting in “sweat equity” or any of the other buzz-word approaches to putting ourselves through the gauntlet… what if it was easy?

What if everything was like meditation? We don’t approach meditation with the furious intensity that we take on every other task, but we still tend to acknowledge it’s importance (assuming we have a practice). We don’t say “I AM GOING TO MEDITATE SO HARD RIGHT NOW” beat our chests and stomp around like so many heavy-lifting gym primates. What is stopping us from dropping in and enjoying the process?

This harkens back to some of last year’s posts about the child-like state – that unapologetic exploring, playing, enjoying. As I think back now of being a kid with a bmx bike, when it didn’t matter how much money I had on me, and it didn’t matter how much time I had before it was time to go in for dinner.

What if it was easy?
What if we just did the thing?

the boomer narrative

“If we believe it’s bleak, then were right – but the fact of the matter is that it’s not as bleak as we’ve been told. Truthfully, every day for the past 25 years we could have had a TV news reporter broadcast a story stating “less people are living in poverty today than yesterday” and it would have been 100% true every single one of those 9125 days.”

Hey all. Welcome home.

A couple months back I listened to a podcast episode on the Rich Roll Podcast – one of the few I listen to with great regularity – where Rich Roll interviewed Seth Godin. I highly recommend anyone who’s creatively inclined check this one out for a great number of reasons. One of the several nuggets that was mentioned that really stuck out to me was around the boomer narrative (and I’m already paraphrasing, btw). It was a quick part of the conversation, but I’d like to expand on it here.

Since the beginning of anything that any of us can remember, a specific generation of people have been controlling the narrative of the entire planet, and this is the baby boomer generation. I’ll assume everyone reading this knows what that is, but for the kids at the back of the class: The Baby Boom Generation is that age demographic of people who were born between 1946 and 1964, aptly named for the influx of pregnancies that resulted from people coming home at the end of World War 2 and starting families.

From that time on, the narrative of western civilization has been told from the voice of that generation, and despite the fact that this generation is reaching their end of life and/or their end of their working years (it’s an 18-year span) – they are still driving the narrative of pretty much everything.

Now, don’t @-me because I don’t have a dog in this fight, and don’t get all hashtag-not-all-boomers on me either, because of course there are individual exceptions to the rule. I acknowledge that the individual is smart, nuanced, and capable of change but in higher numbers, humans have a tendency to adopt a ‘mob mentality’ which serves no one.

Ok. When rock & roll and hot rods and teenage rebellion came about, it was a narrative driven by the boomers – of course it was. This carried over through the 1960s up until the Vietnam war happened. At this point the narrative became all about the draft and how the war was pointless. As the 70s & 80s the narrative became all about arena rock, the corporate ladder and property ownership which brought about construction booms and fuel shortages.

As the world came barreling through the 90s and into the new millennium, things like punk rock and pepsi-cola became synonymous; not because of the quote-unquote Pepsi Generation but because the boomer generation was packaging and selling the next generation’s own version of teenage rebellion back to them. Music, TV and Film were largely handed down from the boomers to their children under the guise of being ‘indie’ even though marketing budgets were huge, and the companies were top-heavy. This was all endorsed by a since-falsely proven theory of trickle down economics perpetuated by – you guessed it.

Environmental concerns started to materialize as GenX and the Millennials started to take note, but it was the Boomers who were finessing and dictating how that story was going to be told and they did a very self-serving job of it right up into the 21st century when the bottom fell out of the market that the boomer generation had been using, profiting from, and bleeding dry for decades. Thereafter the pensions and nest eggs that many boomers had been working for to enjoy their retirement were essentially stolen by other, richer boomers.

Now we have a – and this is where I start to get to the point of writing all of this – ongoing narrative surrounding the idea of a dystopian hellscape future not unlike the boomer-made films ‘Mad Max’ and the ‘Terminator’ franchise in amongst the Church-going God-fearing belief that the End Of Days is upon us. And why do we have this? We have this because ultimately, the boomers are afraid of death – so the narrative is death.

Even though their time is up, and 2 other generations are set to inherit this planet, we’re still using their guiding light into a bleak future.

I am personally tired of this. If we believe it’s bleak, then were right – but the fact of the matter is that it’s not as bleak as we’ve been told. Truthfully, every day for the past 25 years we could have had a TV news reporter broadcast a story stating “less people are living in poverty today than yesterday” and it would have been 100% true every single one of those 9125 days. But… that’s not sensational, so it doesn’t happen.

I’ve spoken before about how ‘realism‘ has been incorrectly pair with ‘fatalism‘ falsely, and that optimism is far more realistic. I’d love it if you dug in on my ramblings about that right here. The principle holds true and generationally speaking, we need to decide consciously how we want to move forward as a planet and as a species… because not making a choice is still a choice, and choosing not to choose is a weak option.

We’re going to need to take an active role in our own future, and it starts in our daily lives with what we buy, what we eat, and what we throw out. We can all do a little better, and I don’t even need to tell you how.
There are changes you want to make in your life.
There are changes I want to make in my life.

Why wait?

the outliers

“I’m not suppressing emotion when I say this, but I can successfully tune out a lot of the negative criticism. I can do this because I am resonating at a higher frequency than ever before, and I know in my heart that I am right where I am supposed to be – in the moment – in this life – in this time and place, and I learned earlier this year that “you will never find a hater that works harder than you.” “

This lifestyle is surprisingly polarizing. I’ve regularly been misunderstood by my peers and certain members of my family, so it’s not particularly alarming that I still am, to a large degree. I’ve come to accept it, and I’ve come to accept the people who misunderstand me. At this point; however, if anything is alarming it’s people’s reactions to my healthy lifestyle.

Lemme know if this sounds familiar:
– I’ve been not-invited to gatherings because of my dietary regimen.
– I’ve had my sanity questioned by my peers.
– I’ve had people refuse to try things I’ve offered them.
– I’ve had people tell me that what I’m doing goes against human biology.
– I’ve had people tell me what I am doing is not sustainable.
– I’ve been handed all kids of labels from ‘crazy’ to ‘rigid’ to ‘overdoing it’ to ‘exceptional’
– I’ve had people tell me I must be super healthy and protein deficient – almost in the same breath.

None of that bothers me anymore, but I will say that to be openly criticized for what I’m doing, but to turn the question around on the person asking it somehow makes me hypersensitive and insecure. For example, “Where do you get your protein?” is a question I can answer, but when I answer and follow up with “how much protein do YOU get?” – I’m being rude.

I’ve learned how to let all that go, and honestly the fact that I’m seeing results from what I am doing is a big help in avoiding these polarizing questions, but it doesn’t make me any less of an outlier. Vegan as I might be, I’m not super connected to a community of vegans in any tangible sense, nor am I connected to a community of athletes. I’m part of a community of musicians and performers, and I’m a bit of an outlier there, too (though there seems to be a bit of a sobriety movement going on and I’m here for it).

I’m not suppressing emotion when I say this, but I can successfully tune out a lot of the negative criticism. I can do this because I am resonating at a higher frequency than ever before, and I know in my heart that I am right where I am supposed to be – in the moment – in this life – in this time and place, and I learned earlier this year from David Goggins that “you will never find a hater that works harder than you.“

These words alone keep me blissfully uninvolved both as a defender of what I’m doing, and as a potential critic of what someone else is doing – because I very much CAN find myself looking around at the gym from time to time, or on the running trail, assessing my surroundings. That said – the people around you are not to be ignored. Seeing what someone is doing and wanting to work towards it is part of our human nature. It’s bred into us to assess our surroundings and be aware of whether or not we’re safe or in danger – just don’t put yourself in danger of sinking to a lower level of gossip and criticism.

This is an exercise in mental toughness, and like any exercise – you have to start with light weight and build up. Don’t expect sainthood from yourself on day 1, just do a little better, and then do a little better than that.

a cry for me

“In any case, nobody saw value in me until I saw value in myself… and I didn’t see any value in myself until I decided that I needed to be a better father and partner. Then I made some changes.”

I recently went down a rabbit-hole of music I wrote and recorded. Which turned out to have the effect of losing track of time flipping through a photo album, or what I imagine an old diary might bring about if I’d ever bothered to keep one… well, maybe I inadvertently kept a very public audio-diary.

These records serve to document my adolescent to adult life. If I was going to sum it all up, I’d likely say that it documented my intense need to belong to a culture or way of life, or in some cases – a person, that I just couldn’t seem to adhere to no matter how hard I tried… Christianity… the punk scene… A series of wonderful ladies, including my eventual wife… alcohol and pills… binge-eating… none of it really ever belonged to me the way I wanted it to, but I certainly belonged to those things at one time or another.

I was very lost until I realized that I was enough for me, and if you’ve figured that out then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I had so much to offer and I felt so dejected for so long because nobody wanted it, and maybe because nobody wanted it, I also didn’t want it… or to flip that around, maybe nobody wanted it because I didn’t even want it.

In any case, nobody saw value in me until I saw value in myself… and I didn’t see any value in myself until I decided that I needed to be a better father and partner. Then I made some changes.

But those changes brought about more changes… and more changes… it strengthened my relationship with my kid and my girlfriend… then I got healthier… then I got stronger… then I got disciplined… then my artistic output improved. With every step my value increased… the value I put on myself, and in turn, the value others saw in me changed drastically.

Every day you see me is a day I’m at my strongest and most valuable.

Sometimes I feel pity for that weaker version of myself. Sometimes I shed a tear for how lost I really was… and for such a long time. Sometimes I shake my head at how long it took me. But I love that stupid fuckin’ kid, because that stupid fuckin’ kid got me to where I am now, so I must show him grace and compassion, and thank him for not throwing in the towel no matter how many times he thought about it.

Training… I haven’t been talking much about, but it’s not because I stopped. I was touring through the mountains into the Okanagan last week with my rock & roll band and I got out for a couple good runs – first outdoor runs this year.

This time I’ve been pining for is finally here – and I aim not to waste it.

what is real

“this is mainly to illustrate the point that we actually don’t know what’s real – not when there are still hundreds of millions of people who believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election and had it stolen from him”

A side effect of my lifestyle is that I spend a certain quotient of my time in hotel rooms, and I; like most people, am ultimately at the mercy of commercial-laden movie channels featuring 20+ year old films featuring the likes of George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, and Jim Carrey for a way to pass time between performances, meals, and whatever writing and work I can get done through the day.

Since commercials are usually a thing I can skip past, watching them has been a total trip, and I can’t help but notice a pattern. Be it cheap shampoo or frozen chicken wings, the recurring linguistic exchange seems to circle around the concept of what is real. It’s not hard to point out the fact that nothing is real, especially in commercials, from the captions that say ‘real people, not actors’ to the idea that the individual consumer than determine what is ‘the real thing’ vs the competitors alternatives. Proclamations of real taste, real feel, real sound, real look, and real smell coupled with the appeal to the consumer’s ego that they can differentiate what is real vs what is fake seem to be the perfect equation for successful sales.

Real coffee, real music, real pickup trucks… it’s truly dizzying.

The problem here is that what is real is not the point. The point is to drill the subliminal belief that you know what is real and that this subliminal implantation can be called upon when standing in the frozen foods section or… wherever.

This is what advertising is. By author and entrepreneur Seth Godin’s account, advertising is a company having the money to interrupt you so they can make enough money to interrupt you again.

Advertisers have rules they have to operate within, and that their slogans stay with you your entire life – so much so that the idea that ‘milk does a body good’ is still a strong belief that people have despite the fact that (a) milk does more harm than good and that’s a fact, (b) this is an advertising slogan, not a scientific study, (c) that the calcium you get from dairy can also come from spinach, whereas the spinach doesn’t carry the addictive and cancer causing components of dairy – but it does have fibre, which you need, (d) there are alternatives that are more flavorful and less pus-laden than animal-based dairy, and (e) the dairy industry has lobbyists, whereas the spinach industry doesn’t.

I could go on drilling this comparison into the ground, but this is mainly to illustrate the point that we actually don’t know what’s real – not when there are still hundreds of millions of people who believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election and had it stolen from him.

So then, what is real?

The spiritual connection I feel to my environment, my family, my dog are real. The sense of purpose I feel when I strap on a guitar and holler out into a dimly lit room full of people is real. Running through the river valley is real. The healing and nutritive properties of plant foods is real. Fellowship, and exchanging ideas is real.

I put forward that we need not worry about what is real so much as what makes us feel alive – What gives us purpose? What clears the cobwebs from our periphery and connects us to the universe?

If we can’t answer these questions, then maybe we’re a little too distracted by what products we can buy that are the most ‘real’ and we have changes to make.

You can change if you want to.
I mean, change is hard, but I argue that not changing is harder – especially once you find what makes you feel alive.

So… find that.

changing of the guard

“This is not a lesson about hanging in there and hoping for the best. If anything it’s a 2-fold lesson about not compromising what you want, and aligning yourself with your purpose.”

I don’t know if there’s any wisdom to share so much as there are some observations I’m making about myself from the 10,000 ft. view of my life… but then again, maybe that’s what I do here every week.

For about the last year or so, I have been recoiling from my job – essentially all of 2022, maybe a little further back then that. I went down to 4 days a week and gave up a few perks that full-time employees enjoy in order to do so. I’d originally asked for some fluidity in my schedule that the company wasn’t willing to offer me due to my position here.

That is, until my supervisor decided to retire. I threw my name in the hat for his job and I got it, thereby regaining the perks I’d forgone previously and attained the flexibility I’d been craving. What I needed was a change and I got it. It’s kind of amazing as I take a step back… y’know, once upon a time this company rolled the dice on making me the shipper/receiver. I’m now the regional accounts supervisor for the Canadian prairies.

This is not a lesson about hanging in there and hoping for the best. If anything it’s a 2-fold lesson about not compromising what you want, and aligning yourself with your purpose. I have a good job that allows me to do things I need to do for my soul; both inside and outside the confines of my employment. Truth be told, I have a number of skills that would serve me well in several different working scenarios, but I have had the good fortune of having the company I work for see the potential in me based on my previous role in the company… yes, that role I was backing away from and doing part time.

This is a testament to living in the moment. When I was at work, I was at work, and I kept on task. When I was away from work, it was because I had other important things on the go – family, performing, writing… and those things had my attention as best I could give it, because those things needed to be firmed up.

Now as I take on this new role, there are other things I need to firm up, namely a work/life balance that; again, is going to be much more doable having made these changes.

It’s a matter of being present, and when you’re entirely present – in the right here / right now – there is no fear, or impatience. Fear comes from paying too much attention to the past, and impatience comes from looking too far forward.

It’s only here and now that we can do our best work.

a.i. art

“Art echoes the human experience, so for someone to even refer to A.I. generated images or sounds as ‘art’ is a minor pet peeve. Any A.I. generated music is likely to be prompted with profit in mind, rather than quality – so my career as a twangy rock & roll recording artist is no more in jeopardy from A.I. than it is from any blossoming DJ remixing top 40 hits in the same year as my next release – it doesn’t even register as a blip on the screen. “

Beyond everyone’s dystopic fears of being enslaved by robots, there are several much more nuanced conversation about A.I. that can be had in the here & now – because no matter how you feel about it, A.I. is happening. The only portion of this conversation I feel remotely qualified to have is that around art.

People are worried; as they have a right to be, that A.I. is changing the landscape of what can be defined as art and what a piece of art might cost, and I think before we take the hair-on-fire reaction to something we don’t fully understand, we’re going to have to acknowledge a few glaring problems within this industry. As I go through this I’ll be toggling between a few different kinds of art.

The first of which; is that most people can’t afford to purchase original art. The glaring example is that The Mona Lisa; owned by The Louvre Museum in Paris, France, is essentially priceless. It’s hypothetically worth more than a billion dollars, but it’s not for sale regardless – this does not prevent me from purchasing a beach towel or a pair of socks with the image printed on it for a much more manageable price tag. I enjoy the licensing of that image, essentially for free.

I own printed copies of original artwork, still in support of the artist, purchased from the artist for a fraction of what a commissioned piece would cost. Many of us do, so the argument of ‘the original article’ vs ‘a reasonable facsimile’ is best left to people with an actual art budget.

Similarly, if I want to hear Bruce Springsteen sing ‘Hungry Heart’ it’s going to cost me a few hundred bucks, an evening, and I’m going to have to wait for the luxury. If I’m willing to settle for a cover band’s rendition of it, I’ll save more than a few bucks.

That’s all from a consumer’s standpoint. As an songwriter and recording artist, myself, I have to say that the entire world has been “getting the milk for free” for a long time without ever worrying about the price of the cow. I truly believe that we should all be able to subside and thrive off of the fruits of our artistic labor, but in the same breath I have to say that if you are making music or making art specifically for notoriety or financial gain, that you’d be better off picking up a part-time job at 7-11.

I make music because it’s in me to make. I’m not sure I really have a choice in the matter – and yes, what I do has value, and I am compensated for my efforts when I perform – but streaming revenues are not something that an artist like me banks on, but it seems to be the price of trying.

Art echoes the human experience, so for someone to even refer to A.I. generated images or sounds as ‘art’ is a minor pet peeve. Any A.I. generated music is likely to be prompted with profit in mind, rather than quality – so my career as a twangy rock & roll recording artist is no more in jeopardy from A.I. than it is from any blossoming DJ remixing top 40 hits in the same year as my next release – it doesn’t even register as a blip on the screen. As a matter of fact, the original version of the aforementioned top 40 hit didn’t register a blip, either, as it was more than likely pieced together in a board room in Sweden by a handful of men led by Max Martin or one of his disciples who specialize in turning note intervals into dollar signs.

… and if Max Martin loses his job to A.I., I have a feeling he won’t be on the bread line any time soon. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he’s already using it to make his life easier.

My thoughts drift to my subtle awareness of how the diamond industry works. Aside from the hellscape that is the Blood Diamond trade, I learned a while back that in the golden age of diamond mining, the pursuit was ‘the perfect diamond’ meaning of course that it had no; or at least very few, flaws. That is until the advent of the cubic zirconia, which is a synthetic compound with an equally stunning appearance that served to crater the notion of mining the perfect diamond, and the end result was an increased valuation on diamonds that were previously considered less valuable due to their flaws. This is because the presence of flaws made for easier certification of real diamonds. Clearly, the diamond industry has it’s problems.

This is analogous to the music industry in a number of ways. With the advent of most advances in recording technology, there have been people who push against it, arguing that the integrity of the craft is being lost – but there are flocks of music fans who go out of their way to see live music in all it’s imperfections, as well as purchase live albums, and seek out ‘gritty’ and ‘raw’ recordings because they feel more ‘real.’ With the undoubted flawless execution of music works performed by A.I. there’s little doubt in my mind that the number of people looking for the humanity in their music and art will only grow larger.

In the end… writers will probably take the biggest hit from this. Copywriters, translators (if there are any left), editors, some journalists I’m sure… but the greatest artistic works will continue to be the echoes of lived experience, which is something A.I. can never profess to have.

In the end, I guess you can go ahead and make all the A.I. generated “art” you want… just don’t expect me to pay for it.

Frankly, I’d be more interested to hear that A.I. has taken on the menial tasks of humanity – all the toilet scrubbing & burger flipping – for free, so we can be free to create more art than ever.