A simpler time

Well, since the last post and this (a period of almost 5 months), I've had a stroke. It's been interesting to look over the last few posts, and see where I've come from, and to suggest a possible future.

I'd like to think that I'm coming back, but the parts of the brain that are dead, are dead forever: They do not come back in the same way, if at all. (Please correct me if I'm  wrong).  I am currently working with some speech therapists from McGill (I had to ask my wife who they were, psycho therapists or what-have-you), and that is the one group that meets me on  a weekly basis for an hour. There is also one doctor who I see every few months, who is in charge of my overall progress, and he is very very busy. 

Anyhow, I don't have a right to complain, it could be a lot worse. My friend Dennis Miller, is about to leave us, about 8 years after cancer first made it's presence felt, and made his life so much more difficult. It's good that we had a beautiful dinner with him and his wife Evelyne,  (right after  my stroke) and saw him at the best of his latest times.

Don't have much else to say here except keep looking at the stars!

The Pursuit of Contentment

 I am reading "The hacking of the American Mind" by Robert H. Lustig, and I have to say, it's a real eye-opener, and is sure to be an important step in my ongoing effort to understand my brain and my emotions, and how better to manage them.

He speaks frequently about the difference between "reward" and "contentment"; the first representing pleasure, the spark, the flame, the instant gratification, and the second: the less acute, but ultimately more rewarding slow embers of happiness that we all need. Flames are beautiful and fascinating, but destructive if you don't watch out; embers keep you warm, last longer, and have their own beauty as well.

In this pandemic year, (and even before), I have started to notice things that bring contentment: Cooking has been one of those; washing dishes, another. I have been noticing (and forgive me if I have gone on about this before) the pleasures, the comforts, and joys of domesticity. Other things, like spending time helping a friend move, give me satisfaction that I never could have imagined. These things are no longer a duty; they are a pleasure. Not the pleasure of nachos, ice cream, or a dry Martini, but pleasures more enduring and far less destructive. (In fact, they have only the side effect of bringing satisfaction to yourself and to your friends and relations).

I think in my last post, I mentioned that I have also given up Twitter and Facebook (OK, I do go back and stalk FB for minutes at a time once in a while, but I am off the ride). I am no longer bound up in that cycle of reward: those constant dopamine hits that one gets with a "like" or a "heart".

One clue to this elusive happiness (now that I am retired) can be found in what I used to do on a vacation in the country: I would read all day long, with three naps a day interspersed, unless I was cooking dinner and making cocktails. The reading/napping/cooking routine, especially the first two, were what gave me the most joy in those days out of town. The cocktails I have cut way back on, (on my Doctor's advice), but I am reading more and more daily. New recipes are being added to the repertoire, and I am napping like a fiend. So, basically I am trying to get back to living a little like I did on vacation, which is a pretty happy place to be.

I was rhapsodising to two of my friends about another of my pleasures, which is food shopping. They really dislike it, and do it only because it MUST be done. I love having a shopping cart, and a credit card, and a lot of time; nothing could be better! I have since volunteered to do the shopping for one of my friends; I wonder if she'll take me up on it?

Spending time with others is a key to happiness for humans, and there is more and more of it these days. No hugging yet, but the time to listen to the stories of the lives of others and to connect is a terrific way to make yourself, and your buddies feel better. I remember a long trip with my friend Andrew Clayden, where the radio on my truck was broken, so all we had was each other for entertainment. We decided that every story had to be told in the "long version", and I can't remember a more pleasant trip. 

Recently, at a little soirée, the majority of our guests had left, and our two neighbours remained, long into the night (well, maybe 11 o'clock, but it was still against the curfew). Just chilling with each other, nursing our drinks and sharing stories, stirring a long-lost, lovely feeling of calm contentment.

I hope you are all getting together with your friends and cooking for them, or they for you, and telling each other long stories, and enjoying their company. 

God's taste-buds

 In an interview with MSNBC's Ari Melber, Dan Harmon, the creator of "Rick and Morty" and "Community", gave a brief definition of what humans are: "We are taste-buds on the tongue of God", which was yet another way of saying what mystics have been saying since history began, that we, the creations of the universe, are the way the creator experiences the cosmos.

My personal theory at times has been that: in the beginning (if there was one), the creator (whoever she may be) was bored, and decided to amuse herself by making creatures through which to experience this thing we are going through. Words, of course, are totally inadequate to convey any sort of mystical thought or experience, so in a way, I ought not to try.

A useful book to read is Michael Pollan's "How to Change your Mind". He explains the use of psychedelics in history and current research and practise. He also documents his experiences taking them. I have begun to "change my mind" as well in a modest way, by ingesting psilocybin in an attempt to get out of my ruts and experience life from a different angle. I often say that drugs move the frame around, make you see things afresh, and challenge the assumptions, beliefs, and habits of a lifetime. I would be willing to bet that Dan Harmon has spent some serious time with drugs. After a cursory search on the internet, it turns out he has.

A short excerpt from an interview: 

"When you feel that mental breakdown happening, that means you're about to get smarter. You're growing. You're inheriting the universe. You're becoming closer and closer to a thing called "God," and "you're gonna get through this. You're gonna get trough this." It's like when you have a bad trip on mushrooms or acid, your friend who says, "This is cool. This is normal. Even though the walls are talking to you. You just need some orange slices. You need to get through this, and it's important that this is happening. It's giving you perspective." Otherwise you'd just be like, "This is insane, so I'm insane, so nothing matters, so I think I'll go do something horrible in public."

Drugs are one way to get out of the ruts (or grooves) we are in, to question the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, our neighbours, our society,  etc... Meditation is another way. Religion, being a story we tell ourselves to give our lives meaning, and a set of shared values for a community, doesn't qualify in the same way, (the great tradition of Christian, and other mystics aside), unless the religious person does the work of listening to the "still small voice". Jesus was one wise dude, and his standard for these things was hard to beat: "By their fruits shall ye know them" (Matthew 7:20) When a religion makes you a more loving, open and accepting person, then it's a good one. When it closes the door to acceptance, love, and kindness, it's garbage.

Happy cogitating everyone, and especially: happy experiencing.

 

 

A change in the culture

I remember when it was normal to drive when you had had a few (or more); you may not have been falling down, but you were impaired. Due to a successful public awareness campaign, our culture around driving while impaired has changed. Yes, there are still a few die-hards (some of them friends of mine) who still indulge in this dangerous habit, but for the most part, we, as a society, view it as a bad idea, and don't do it. 

In the same way, there is an acceptance of same-sex relationships and fluid sexuality, which is something unimaginable to my teenage self. In the sheltered world I grew up in, it wasn't even talked about. Now, it is 20 years past the date of the first same-sex marriage, in the modern era, at least. (It was, naturally, practised in the ancient world long before Judeo-Christian dogma completely infested Western culture.) This cultural shift of happened so quickly as to infuriate a segment of North American society: the God-fearing "traditional" religious person. 

We are still in a period when change is inevitable, and those among us who have learned to be flexible (or at least polite) in the face of radical social change have done relatively well. It's easy to criticize those who have not, from the lofty perch of our well-intentioned and well-fed liberalism, but it has been hard on the religious person. At the same time, though, I wonder if it's wise to cater to those whose ideas and traditions (mostly the latter, for if religious people were serious thinkers, they would have questioned their beliefs and dumped them long ago) prevent them from appreciating, understanding and accepting the many fundamental changes Western society is undergoing. The train has left the station; you are no longer in Witchita, and no-one really knows where the train is heading. 

The religious person, if he is polite, seeks to persuade, cajole, influence, either through his words or his example, those who have left the path. Other religious persons seek to clamp down on, suppress and even destroy the person who is embracing a new culture. They are two sides of a strange coin, for whose business is it to change someone's mind, or to try to make them stop doing what you disapprove of?

 Just as God is changeable: from the aggressive, capricious murderous one of the Old testament to the loving, but still pretty inflexible, God of the New, so is human society. There is no constant but change (so far).

A place apart

 Heading into quasi-retirement is never as easy as you think, even when you are a person with many interests, and an atypical working life like I have had. I say atypical, but I only compare that to those who work in an office, or a job that has strict hours. My career, until 10 years ago when the Université de Montréal hired me to teach trombone and ensembles, was uncertain. I counted myself as one of the "chronically under-employed", even though there periods when I was working 7 days a week for months on end.

I don't miss those times. Even though it's nice to be popular and in demand, it's also nice to not have any demands on your time. With the advent of my 40th year as a professional musician, I am ready to slow down, all the while not having a clear idea of where to put my energies, and how much time I want to devote to a career that was enough to keep body and soul together (with lots of help from my wife, Vivian Lee, whose full-time OSM work kept the ship afloat through some lean years). 

 

I am sitting in a library, and it's quiet. I have waited months for this moment, one that I always will cherish: a time set apart to reflect, to read, to write a letter to a friend, to be alone and unencumbered. And it's available to anyone with an ID card. If you want to do this in a café, it will only cost you a cup of coffee, but it's just about as satisfying. When you are at home, there is always someone or something that can draw you away; here, you have no such demands and distractions, and I count that a blessing. 

Stage Fright

 I've basically always had stage fright, and it's not something that we musicians often discuss amongst ourselves. As a teacher, it has come up often, and I have often advised students on how to visualise, to prepare assiduously, but a thought occurred to me tonight, and it is one that I wish my teachers had shared with me. 

My recent recitals, which I do for fun (for even skilled performers, unless very well known, never really get paid for recitals), have had better results than in the past for one basic reason; I have  been far more focused on the desire to share music with my audience, to get caught up in the song, to be a conduit for the muses.

Early on in my career as a nervous performer I became aware that stage fright is a sort of egoism; an excessive concern for your desired outcome, and worse than that, your concern for being thought a failure when you go wrong. Perhaps I am being too harsh on we nervous nellies, and our failure to play with confidence arises from a natural disposition, and maybe a heightened sensitivity. I am sure that all these things are true. In addition, a creative person naturally imagines scenarios in their mind, the more dramatic the better. It may be an enigma never to be solved, but my insights about performers and their role as interpreters of other's music have taken a radical turn: I believe we are meant to be servants of music, and vessels for the divine inspiration that comes from opening oneself to the spirit of music.

There are two parts to this: One is that you must have within yourself a song that wants to come out. If you don't have that desire, then leave your instrument in the case. Janos Starker once told me: "we do this because we must do this". A few years ago, while at a pianist friend's house, I played some well-known repertoire with her, and was stunned at the music that was pouring forth, and how right and necessary it felt: I became aware that there was music in me that just had to be let out. 

The second became clearer during my time as a conducting student with Raffi Armenian, and later in my own teaching: the attempt to understand what the composer wants in phrasing, and the architecture of a piece of music: where is the high point of a phrase, what is the high point of the piece, what is the emotion that the composer wants to convey? Searching these answers out is a joy, and the performance of a piece, without having done this important work, is a waste of time. I have heard musicians with important jobs who had no conception of how a piece ought to go. Questions of taste enter here, and of course all things are subjective. But a performer needs to find the interpretation, their interpretation, and that is done by inquiry, not imposition. Beethoven says it best: the score contains everything except the music.

 

In former times, musicians wore servant's dress, and though a return to that practise would be silly, a return to the idea of serving the muse has been a welcome idea for me. And therein lies my possible solution for stage fright. If my teachers even knew how nervous I was (they probably didn't), they might have said to me: "This music is more important than your nerves, your concern for making a good showing. You are entrusted with making this music come alive; you need to be alive to its meaning, and alive to the spirit that makes music through you. There is no time for your feelings now, there will be time for them later; you are here to serve the muse; get to work!"

"Eyes Open"

 It's funny how you get a great idea, a life-changing idea, and then it just slips away into the ether. For all the talk of the complexity of the human brain, it's a pretty crappy computer. Beethoven walked around with a sketchbook so that he wouldn't let that happen to any of his musical ideas. I have done the same, from time to time: gotten out of bed to scratch out an idea that "appeared to me in a dream", but just as often I have fallen back asleep, figuring it will catch up to me later when it's more convenient. 

One such idea came to me last week, and I have endeavoured to hold on to it, to treasure it. It came to me while being massaged. I won't tell you the name of this wondrous person, because I don't want her to get too busy, and not have time for me. Here is what happened: the ministrations of my massotherapist were made in such a loving way, that they made me feel loved, and that sense of being cared for, of needs being met in a deep way, inspired me to feel, well, there is no way to truly describe that feeling, but it made me want to be a better person. After all, when one feels his needs met, one has enough to share with others. 

I am feeling a lot like that lately, ensconced in my bourgeois life, with a roof over my head...etc... I have enough, and I have time and the willingness to share my time, my concern, with other people. And I am doing it in a small way. This is not the sort of "if I give you some attention, then you will give me some in return", rather a sense of being able to give someone some of my attention without desire for reciprocity. Now, I'm not saying I'm living any kind of Saintly Life; I have my limits,  and am very quick to anger and too quick to judge, and judge harshly. But with age has come some knowledge of those limits, and a desire to be of use, and to feel more often the joy of making a difference in someone's life.

I celebrate this partly because the ability to actively encourage, listen to, and care for others is not something I am doing because of my religion; I have none. Nor am I doing it for brownie points with anyone, my Dear Reader included. Rather, it is something that has, I think, naturally unfolded with the passage of time, and the amount of ease that slowly has come my way as retirement begins. I am not religious, neither do I love atheism, because, of course, it is a religion too. Nor am I agnostic; rather, I keep my eyes open and judge for myself. This reminds me of something my dear friend Mike said to me, concerning the church in which he was raised: "I had pretty much made up my mind at the age of 10 that this was a load of B.S."

The phrase "Eyes open!" graces my twitter page. I don't remember where I heard it, maybe it was from the TV series "Kobra Kai", but these two words are rich in meaning, and as important as ever in the age in which we find ourselves. In Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements" which I perused earlier this year, the author makes some very valid points about "living in the dream": living with a set of assumptions about the world, about other people, about our place in the world and other people's attitudes toward us. "Eyes Open" reminds me to try to see someone clearly; not as I want them to be, and maybe not even as they see themselves, (although that would be mighty helpful), but as they really are. 

Anyone who is "bored of life" might take up this practise, to try and see others, and of course yourself, as they and as you really are. To get out of the story, the dream, and into something approaching truth.

What dreams do you find yourself falling into these days? Do you feel there are moments when you think  you might be seeing yourself and others as they really are, and not through a filter of stories about them, or a religion or an ideology?