Tag: zen

outlets

I’ve recently taken on a new project, and a direction of learning I’ve never spent any time with before. It’s a wild trip, if I’m being honest. I purchased an online course during boxing week and it’s likely the closest thing to a New Year’s Resolution I’ve ever done… though the timing is somewhat coincidental.

I’ve decided to dig in on Brian Wampler’s guitar pedal building course, which is a very thorough and fairly in-depth way of learning all the ins & outs (HA!) of guitar pedal building.

I’ve long been frustrated with the availability of things I need in order to accomplish what I want to accomplish as a performer. I have a number of great pieces of equipment I’ve acquired over the years but there is a piece of the guitar effects market that; I feel, anyway, is largely ignored. I can’t be certain that there’s a market for what I’m hoping to accomplish once I attain the knowledge I’m setting out to find, but it’s quite possible that there is. I’m hesitant to get into what that is in the event that this does turn into some measure of side-hustle but there are some things I know about myself that are definitely helpful here:

  • I am really good at playing guitar
  • I am really good at getting sounds I am happy with
  • I have an intense level of focus
  • I have an artistic vision

But… if all I end up doing is building things for myself then I honestly think I’ll be happy with that… but you never know how things will go until they go. Anyway, it’s very exciting and extremely nerdy and I’m happy to have this new direction of learning.

If you tuned in to this blog from some spiritually-driven snack, and feel like you’ve been denied that, don’t worry… I’m not done yet.

It might sound a little bonkers, but this is truly something that aligns with me spiritually and is truly helping me navigate the prairie winter months. When I am immersed in this, it can only happen in real time… it’s an incredible experience where I am not thinking about food, or work, or anything except for what’s in front of me. It’s an incredibly meditative (active meditation, obviously) and grounding (HA!) experience that seems to tie me to the present moment in a special way.

Sure, I have other things in my life that offer that level of detachment from the world around me, but the way my brain seems to thrive is to have a few options to alternate through – songwriting and composition, recording, performing, my vintage automotive pursuits, and now this new exercise – all provide me with a break from my distractions and put me into a moment where I can completely lose track of time and just create.

It’s thrilling.

not my business

It’s time for another one of these…

I’m trying to get into the habit of posting one of these every few weeks, and at the risk of appearing too lazy to make a video AND a separate blog post… well.. if that appears lazy to you, then I guess you’ll have to take a look at your expectations of other people.

I write lots… mostly songs. So, here’s a look at one of those songs that my rock & roll band ‘The Confusionaires’ plays regularly.

I like to write songs about things… and when you play in a noisy rock & roll band, sometimes the subject matter gets suppressed by the energy.

Enjoy!

the return spring

I recently replaced; among other things, the clutch in my 1962 Ford. It’s a very cool vehicle that’s endured a lot of misuse and abuse at the hands of it’s masters over the years – so this car & I have a lot in common. I love this car – I’m emotionally invested in it and after 13 years, I oughta be. vehicles of this vintage were intended to be worked on and I intend to work on this one, and although there’s really only one way to do most things on cars like this, there’s still a pretty generous margin for error and I’ve certainly spent some time there.

Replacing the clutch (…again) can be a big job. If you’re looking at your clutch, there’s a strong likelihood that you did a lot of work to get to a point where you could see it. I’ve seen mine a few times and it always involves multiple cuss words to access it.

The reason I was looking at it this time is because I killed my throw-out bearing. If you don’t know what that is, it’s what disengages the transmission from the engine temporarily so you can shift gears, and it does that every time you step on the clutch pedal. If there’s too much tension on it, it will keep pressing; albeit lightly, and cause undue wear & tear on the clutch components – those components we just did a lot of work to access. That said, if there’s not enough tension on ‘the return spring‘ that is responsible for re-engaging the transmission to the motor, then the throw-out bearing will; again, continue to press up against things it ought not be pressing up against – causing that very same kind of undue wear & tear.

Needless to say, my clutch had been out of adjustment for a long time, and the components burnt out. This is interesting to me as I do a lot of self analysis when I’m working on my car – my time in the garage is a reflective and contemplative time for me, and when I realized that things were set up to fail NOT because there was too much tension on a mechanism, but because there was not enough, I had a eureka moment in more than one way.

Yes, I solved the problem – or part of it, anyway. The rest was done through some routine adjustments that are akin to completing the job. A eureka moment, to be sure.

But the idea that a system was unsuccessful due to a lack of tension struck me as very interesting in a metaphor for life. We actually see this al the time – we know people who have said; or perhaps we’ve said it ourselves – if we don’t have a deadline, the task won’t get done. Any non-pressing task will inevitably get back-benched for time sensitive ones. We pay our bills on time because if we don’t, there’s a penalty. There are deadlines for homework assignments, grant applications, race trophies, showing up to work… quotas for tasks assigned… donation commitments… speed limits… final exams… meeting times… the list goes on and without some structure around both the ‘catching’ and the ‘releasing’ then nothing really works as intended.

We may not count these things as being particularly stressful because they come with the territory of making commitments – even fun commitments like going to a movie or meeting friends for dinner have some structure around them. It’s not until we’re over-extended, or too-tightly wound that we start failing to be able to keep up with even the most casual commitment, and our personal systems go into failure.

The lesson here is about striking balance, and setting ourselves up for success.

Everything I am doing, I am doing in order to get to my preferred destination, but if we’re not seeking balance in the meantime, we’re bound to break down before we ever arrive, and in includes an amount of tension as well as relief.