joy – The Conscious Pilgrim

I try to be transparent in these posts – I really do – though I’m cognisant of the fact that; although I think or feel a certain way when I’m sitting at my computer with a coffee and a peaceful house around me, sometimes the follow-through of my namaste demeanor out in the real world is… let’s say… harder to spot in a crowd.

It’s that same contrast that allows us to identify that Christmas is the season of giving while simultaneously road-raging our way to-&-from the mall on a Saturday afternoon. So, in that way… It’s not even a thing I’m willing to apologize for… because we are a complex and messy race; we humans, and are worthy of a little grace and understanding.

But it’s in that very lack of apology that I must also allow people to be people… and generally speaking, people are panicky, stressed out, over-caffeinated, under-slept, hangry, and financially maxed out at the best of times, but December adds it’s own layer of chaos to the mix that tends to result in an additional element of ‘unpredictable.’

That’s fine.
All most people need is a little space, I think.
And a sandwich.

This phenomenon isn’t relegated to strangers. There’s a good chance that your friends and people in your family are behaving erratically as well – and after a recent observation, roughly 1/3 of people (an American statistic, but how different could Canada really be?) are estranged from their families or members thereof.

I think a lot of people are shocked when they hear a family member is estranged, but as someone who has put distance between myself and certain members of my family (in the past, for a good while) I can honestly say than any time I’ve heard that someone has chosen to do this, I’ve congratulated them on making an obviously very difficult decision to take care of themselves first. When an airplane loses cabin pressure and the oxygen masks drop, you are instructed to put your own mask on before assisting others, and don’t think this metaphor is out of place here.

There are also seasons to everything.
The end of my estrangement situation came with the death of a parent’s partner.

I guess what I’m taking the scenic route around to saying is that the holidays are just as hard as they are magical – and it’s okay for the holidays to be both hard and magical… so as we close in on the most hellacious part of the whole ordeal, I hope that whatever your Christmas or Christmas-adjacent plans might be, or where they might take you, that you find some peace, love, and hope.

I also hope; on a more personal level, that you choose to celebrate without harming any of our fellow earthlings – the ones who can’t speak up for themselves. Veganuary can start ANY TIME.

Happy whatever-you’re-into, everyone.

As much as I eschew clickbait, I do still see those absurd headlines attempting to conjure clicks and engagement. The one I happened across just before writing this entry was about how Taylor Swift is the cultural heir (for lack of a better term) to what Bruce Springsteen has cultivated over his decades of writing and performing. I don’t really care what that article says, but I know enough to be able to acknowledge that Springsteen can do no wrong in most older music fans’ eyes, and that Taylor Swift is a polarizing character because she’s seen to have not ‘paid her dues’ yet for some bonkers reason. Hence… the clicks.

Chock it up to chauvinism, generational baggage, or whatever you want in order to justify the old guard’s disdain or distrust of Taylor Swift – but the fact is that this is not how all of this works. It’s not a royal bloodline in the monarchical sense – but proposing it might be a royal bloodline does serve to upset people who might not realize the bullshit factor in these types of comparisons.

Comparison. What a bitch.

Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s been said so many times that it’s almost meaningless when we hear it, but the distraction that comes with comparison can derail so much greatness. The amount of alcohol I’ve ingested, the amount of bad food I’ve eaten, and the amount of drugs I’ve done pale in comparison to the distraction I’ve put in my own way through being concerned with what other people are doing, and what successes other people are seeing from their efforts.

“This peformer is ___ years younger than me”
“That video has ___ more views than mine”
“That band has ___ more people at their shows than me”

… all of it distracts from what it truly important in my life – which is: am I engaging in my purpose?

None of that shit matters.

What I’m doing matters.
But… What I’m doing doesn’t matter to you – or at least it shouldn’t – partly; if not completely, because it brings about a sense of fear, and fear doesn’t live in the present moment… it lives in the future.

That brings about another thought which might seem to come from out of left field, but I think it relates. That is the potential role of A.I. in art and music as the future comes hurtling toward us.

It was recently put to me that with the advent of companies buying up the catalogued works of Bob Dylan, Dee Snider, and other song cafters of the 20th century and the growing ‘threat’ of A.I.’s presence in the arts are linked, and that these catalogues will be fed into A.I. machines for the purpose of creating more Bob Dylan (and others’) records long after the death of artists like him, and that “this is what we’ll be competing with in the future.”

I have to say that if this is remotely true, I won’t be competing.
It won’t be a competition.
If there’s a market for computer generated music, it’s likely going to be in genres of music that are inherently perfect. Recordings that have been engineered to a point of soulless perfection will be under threat of being undercut by machines that can do it faster and cheaper, and that don’t come with the flawed human elements of coping with addiction, trauma, stress, and all the other things that make art a reflection of humanity.

There will be no competition because there will be no comparison. If anything, it’s just as likely that value on human performances – flawed, imperfect performances – will increase, because it is real and relatable… and because as close as these things can get to being authentically human, humans still have a gut instinct that tells them when something is ingenuine, or outright bullshit.

If anything, my skills will be even more specialized as less people are actively doing them live and in-studio.

… there will be no comparison.
And my joy in performing my craft will stay intact.