Something that I’ve not always believed is that you can accomplish anything that you want to. Do I believe it now? I’d say yes, I do believe that. I’d say that you can manifest essentially anything you want—it just may not look like what you were expecting, and I think that’s the main reason people don’t believe that they can do it. Most often, the path to the destination’s nothing like what I’d planned on or anticipated, and I think that’ll derail me and a lot of other people sometimes where I think that I need to have a specific thing happen on my musical journey or something like that, for example. I think a lot of us believe that there’re certain checkpoints on the way to any goal that need to be reached. Now, for example, if you’re trying to hit a goal of benching 225, there’re certain benchmarks that you’d probably absolutely have to hit, like benching 220. But if we use a different example, like just wanting to be ripped, you may not need to bench 225 to be ripped. That may be a byproduct in certain circumstances, but some people might be really fit but are still kicking themselves because they’ve not hit certain benchmarks like benching 225 or other number-based goals that’re considered standard or that the majority’d consider to be adequate.
Something that’s difficult for me but that I’ve had a goal of doing is trying to have nonspecific goals that still get me where I need to go. For instance, I want to be rich like a lot of people, but then we’ve to decide what it really is to be rich, and do I really even want that, and what version of rich would I want when I say that? Because if we say we want to get rich or be successful, when does it even end? How much is enough, or is it ever enough or reasonable to stop pursuing a goal like that? So it’s to be nonspecific but not never-ending. This’s sort of hard for me to do because I want to get rich, but when I think about what that looks like for me, there’re way too many things that come to mind, like getting a big truck first or buying this magic card, and then when I attach those variables to my goal, my goal ends up being about the truck, I guess, or I worry that’s what it’ll end up being. I think sometimes the hardest thing for me is thinking about what it is that I really want besides being rich. That’s the most general goal that basically everyone has. It also begs the question: how do I want to get rich?
Now, some of you’d think that the answer’s obvious and that it should be that I want to get rich from music, but I think that kind of ruins my music goals. I’d love to be rich and famous from music, but that’s not necessarily what I think I make the music for or what I want it to do. I feel like I want the music that I make to give people something that’s like the feeling of going down a water slide in an audio and sometimes visual experience. It’s like the feeling of having so much fun that it’d be impossible to think about anything else. I think that I’ve accomplished that in some sense from what people’ve told me after shows and things like that, and honestly that’s super fulfilling and is one of the main driving forces behind me still doing it. Also, I don’t want you to think I don’t want to become rich and famous from music. I do, and that’d be badass. But I also think that I’ve to keep my focus and intention pure, or else things could become convoluted and the music or my own experience’d lose its purity. I do think that if I could get it to a size where I’m rich and famous, it’d probably be good for the world because overall that’s all I’m trying to do with it—just bring light to the world in the best way that I can. Yes, I’ve my own selfish desires as well, but lately I try to focus on the purity of the music and hope that the wealth’ll be a byproduct. And if it never works, then I at least can take solace that I still did what I set out to do on a bigger scale than most people ever do.
That’s also something that I’ve had a hard time reckoning with—that I’m selfish and I do daydream about being rich and famous, but I’m doing my best to keep my intentions pure and do everything purely for the love of the game. That mindset helps me feel more fulfilled when things don’t always blow up and get like a million views or streams or whatever I was hoping for. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a pussy mentality and I should be more driven, but I don’t think that it is at this point because it just helps me be at peace and still stay motivated. Because I think if I was motivated by fame and fortune, my motivation’d have run out around three years in, to be honest, that was when it was starting to run out a little bit, and I had to look deep inside and figure out what I was really doing it for. If you’re not doing it for the love of the game, then the love runs out pretty fast, I think. I also’ve come to believe that it’ll take on the shape of something at a much greater scale if that’s for the betterment of mankind, which I believe it is, so long as we keep it pure. I do believe it’ll pop major league, but I’ve quit holding on to certain aspects of success that I’ve seen other people attain and been jealous of because it’s not for me to decide the opportunities I’ll be afforded. All I can do’s seize the ones I’m given and squeeze them for all they got and hope that it’ll take me where I hope to go.
Now, to sort of move on past music and manifesting my success there. As of late, I’ve been struggling with a new, unfamiliar, and deeply grating sort of internal need for something else. When I say “as of late,” I mean like this year, I guess, and some of the last one. It’s this feeling of chasing a dragon I never had in the first place. It feels like I smoked crack once but forgot what it was that made me feel that way, and now I’m trying to remember. I feel that it’s to be very pure and almost feels that it must be primordial, but perhaps it’s only old in the way that it’d take me back to a younger version of myself, one that’s like a child. A version of me that’s certainly attached largely to the greater all of consciousness when we’ve yet to develop an ego or anything that gives us that desire to pull us away from others and prove to ourselves that we’re apart. I need to get back to the feeling of being one and being in the center that I know I’ve felt before. I’ve, in truth, felt only fleeting moments of purity in my joy and peace. I feel that I’m unfortunately tainted in some way where I can’t wholly enjoy anything because I’m too far from the center of things. I myself perhaps’ve been too far from God, who is or is in the center, so to speak.
The last time I can remember feeling for a lasting period of time a true sense of unadulterated joy and peace was probably on my mission. I’ve had glimpses of what I think it is that I need, but maybe the crack I smoked was just being on my mission. I’ve had peeks back behind the curtain daily, even sometimes when I’m embracing my wife or enjoying time with her—truly my other half. I feel it when I’m with my friends enjoying a game of Magic the Gathering, laughing or conversing. I feel it when I ride a jet ski. Riding a jet ski’s truly the ultimate form of prayer or meditation. How can you be conscious of anything other than what’s in front of you when you’re on a jet ski? You’re so close to God at that moment. You’re there enjoying the warmth of the sun, the gentle spray of water on your face, the beautiful body of water wherein you ride the jet ski. It’s so primal. In those moments, I could never remember my check engine light. I’d never think about work on Monday. Is that escapism? If I rode the jet ski to forget, am I escaping? I don’t think so. I’m only hovering above that place where I’m accidentally trying to be far and close to everyone all at once.
I think about how consciousness’s most often a burden to me, and I usually am trying to escape it, like on the jet ski. I don’t want to think about anything. I’d love to be like a child again, to think almost nothing all the time—only to act spontaneously in each moment, doing nothing that’s planned. That’s what they say the Tao is. In Book of the New Sun, there’s a medical procedure you can undergo to have that burden taken from you and just become like a monkey. In the movie Altered States, he talks about a time he was sort of gone back to monkey mode and says that just eating, drinking, and sleeping being the only things you worry about was the most supremely satisfying feeling he’d ever had. I bet that’d probably be true. Here’s the thing, though: that’s just not how things are, and I can’t go back to monkey, so I’m trying to find that place that I used to be. I can’t go back to my mission and to the simplicity that brought me such satisfaction. Things’re complicated and require me to be so acutely aware of myself that I end up despising each thing I say. Where’s the balance? How can I be civilized and still be acting spontaneously in each moment, taking actions without planning each motion? How can I say what’s needed but still not think about it till it hurts?
I remember this Polynesian guy that I knew on my mission, and he told me that when things got quiet, his mind was just empty. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him what he was thinking about right then, and he said to me, “Nothing, I was just talking to you.” I was like, “Don’t you think about something while you’re talking to people?” And he was like, “No way, bro, that’s crazy.” I was like, “Damn, bro, I’m so jealous.” I’m always thinking. Even now when I write this, I’m battling thoughts of other things and people and reactions to things that I said today. It drives me wild if I let them in, so I’ve to type as fast as I can so that I don’t get disconnected, or else I’ll start thinking about something way different. I just don’t know how to do it, though, but I think that’s what I’m seeking—just some way to be at peace and childlike and have an empty mind. I think if I can get there, I’ll find a lot more of the answers that I’m looking for and that I’ll accomplish more of my goals. Like I said, I get peeks, but they’re so far in between that I start to forget what I saw back there last time when I see. I think when I could look behind the curtain whenever I wanted, I was so pure and felt so pure. Maybe that’s in some sense what I’m seeking—just to feel like I’m pure again and that my joy’s pure as well because it comes from me and that I’m a clean source of energy. I think part of the problem’s that I’ll be feeling joy or riding the jet ski so to speak and that I can’t keep my own mind out of it, and that’s part of what taints it—that I’m so conscious in a moment that I can’t enjoy the mindless purity of it. In that way I feel that I’m tainted.
I’m probably right about just being more spiritually focused. This’s one of those rare times for me when I’m not sure if there’s a simple solution to this problem. Sometimes I’m getting to the end of a blog, and I feel like I can say what the answer to what I’ve been experiencing is in maybe like an idiom or just a famous phrase, but here I feel that it’ll take more digging and thinking to get there, or just maybe a lot of practice and meditation. It could get me closer to the center. And if I’m there more, I think that’s where I can make anything happen.
I know that I must progress—I can’t go back to monkey or kid in any way. There’s only forward, but I must find a way for me to gain access to that space or feeling, maybe in a planned way. Is it just meditation and prayer? Is the answer that simple? Yes and no, but I’m sure that’s where I need to start. I think it’s in those places that I’m closest.