create – The Conscious Pilgrim

vibration

I’m sure I’m not alone in my observations here, but my social media feed has devolved a few notches in an effort to show me content that does not align with my values at all… and by that I mean the advent of artists talking shit about other artists in an effort to… I don’t know, raise their own profile?

I move in country music circles a bit, so I’m speaking primarily about this Gavin Adcock character, whom I’ve never heard of before a few weeks ago, who has grabbing headlines by talking shit about Charley Crockett and Zach Bryan. I won’t get into the back-story because the back-story isn’t the point. The point is that I have now heard of Gavin Adcock, a man who’s decided to take issue with the ‘authenticity’ of other country singers to the point of publicly slinging arrows at Charley Crockett, who has said nothing and continued to just do his thing, which includes making records and entertaining fans.

Since then, Zach Bryan (another country singer) and Paul Cauthen (yet another country singer) have decided to weigh in on a discussion that never involved them in an effort to grab some headlines as well… Bryan going so far as to climbing over a chain-link fence at a music festival to confront Adcock.

I hate this.
This is Trump-style politicking within the arts community.
These people should be creating community and art and propping each other up rather than tearing each other down.

Since then I’ve seen some other musician I’ve never heard of is taking similar shots at Yungblood in hopes of netting a similar result.

This is some low-vibrational shit.
I hold nothing but contempt for so-called ‘reality TV’ and do not wish to see it permeate culture more than it already has. It’s done irreparable damage to our artistic media already, and only serves to distract us from our purpose on this planet.

We should be creating or supporting.

Just take care of each other.
Build each other up and support what you love, and leave what you don’t love alone. There’s so much amazing stuff being created every day and this soap-opera drama is negatively impacting our lives, even if we don’t realize it at the time.

This is not normal or healthy behavior.

Create or support.
Those are our only real viable options here… make something, or support someone else who’s making something.

Increase your vibration.

busy busy busy

I’ve been writing a lot lately, and not only in this blog, so I’m hoping that I don’t end up falling behind in this, but I’ve been working on grants for touring with Confusionaires and working on a few new songs I’m excited about. It’s also a busy time at my day job but that doesn’t really impact this blog much.

Soon, my band will be announcing our Mexico tour, and we’ll be able to count ourselves among the ranks of export ready Canadian bands, which is big for us. We’ll be there for 10 days and play 7 shows (maybe more). Before that, we’ve got a a 2-nighter of Elvis, and a 3-show run of Buddy Holly performances at the end of January that you should most certainly buy tickets to… please… because Mexican gigs pay in pesos…

All that to say I’m really in a state of equal parts shock and gratitude, but I’m reminded that it’s important speak love into other people’s lives, too. We humans get so wrapped up in our own shit that we forget to come up for air sometimes.

A friend of mine is in sales, and recently posted a very vulnerable and beautiful post about the state of the world and ho she felt like she was distracting people from these things that need attention. It prompted a conversation and we got to really encourage each other in our ventures because these things are important – even though they’re not a war in Gaza, or a homeless crisis – we still get to facilitate people bringing joy into their lives, which is incredibly noble – but I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, and neither had she. It got me thinking about how rare these conversations are and that they shouldn’t be so rare.

Did these conversations used to be more common? Before the internet and the de-personalization of everything? I don’t know, and I don’t remember.

But I want to go to that place with people, to inspire and be inspired… and I have people I can do that with, and I am very lucky to have them… but there must be more. People are not just their avatars… they are complex and flawed and wonderous… and we should know more of them.

Anyway… that’s my stream of consciousness for today.

Much love.

finding the edges

As I round out the first couple of months of 2023, I am ultimately content with my progress as it pertains to physical fitness (despite some inevitable frustration with the speed of that progress, but hey!). The reason I am content with my progress is because it IS progress, and in order to feel the way I want to feel, I need to be pushing forward.

I’m not opposed to rest & recovery. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about personal challenges within my vocation. I’m talking about writing better, lifting heavier, playing guitar more proficiently, helping my contemporaries at work to deal with challenging situations and learning from them. I’m at my best when I’m actively engaged in what I am doing and who I am with, and I wager that you’re no different.

I’ve learned that nobody wants to see a ‘pretty good’ rock & roll band, they want to see a great rock & roll band – a truly exceptional rock & roll band, for that matter. In the same way, my girlfriend doesn’t want to have a conversation with me when I am distracted by a TV show or a social media post; not when she could have an honest, engaging discussion with me – she wants to be reminded that she’s more important than whatever content I am consuming.

It’s too easy to live a life of leisure; to enjoy the fruits of your labor without any plan to return to work. As humans, we’re predisposed to this, likely due to some evolutionary trait that permitted us to be content with a certain set of comfortable circumstances. Personally; and I know this is common to many people – I’m happy as a clam being on vacation, but there IS a point at which lazing about reaches it’s limit, and the need to accomplish something kicks in. This is why I’ve gradually fallen in love with making a plan. “Finding the edges” is a crucial part of this, because we need to know what the limitations of our capabilities are, particularly if we’re going to push or stretch them and avoid complacency.

Complacency is what happens when we stop rising to meet new challenges and succumb to the comforts of life. We accept the reality with which we’re presented and have a hard time seeing beyond it because we’ve stopped looking. For many people, this is retirement, but for most of us it means giving in to a lifestyle that isn’t necessarily easy, but that we’ve decided we’re okay navigating. This might look like a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle… it might look like retirement… or it might look like sleeping in a ravine in a makeshift tent and spending your day scheming to get a fix to numb your pain.

We all share this humanity, and some compassion is required in order to navigate these waters… but maybe that’s a post for another day.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Plans change. They can change and they will change – and it’s only when there is no plan that change is particularly hard or uncomfortable.

Training this week has been reasonably solid. My work schedule has changed a bit, and with the advent of subscribing to a Monday-Friday work schedule for the first time in over a decade, a few regularly occurring things on the calendar have been shuffled out of necessity.

If anything, my workouts are longer somehow. Monday (which I took off this week w/ the Family Day long weekend), as well as Thursday and Saturday are long endurance days. A solid 60 – 75 minutes of running. Tuesday and Friday are weight lifting days, as they historically have been, but with an endurance component as well, which is divvied up between the stair-climber, the stationary bike, the rowing machine, and the tank. Wednesday & Sunday are rest days.

I’m also making an effort to spend some time stretching and doing some isolated core work on a gym mat at the end of each of the 5 sessions. I’m sure I will reap the rewards of that in time, but for the moment I’m just trying to make sure I get it done.

This should get me into outdoor running season, but things are constantly changing and fine-tuning. It’s a process.