Our Labor Will Never Bear Fruit. And that’s good news.

I had a breakthrough several years ago when I realized I was far too distracted by the mountain of musical skills that I had not yet acquired.  While I was doing well, touring all over Europe, playing good gigs, or writing reams of new songs, there was this tricky little apparition tugging at my sleeve.  It was that nagging, humming, low-level stress of not being where I wanted to be.  Of course creative hunger and a gritty thirst for knowledge can be a good kind of heat.  But this wasn’t that. It lacked the sexy, fertile warmth of a healthy muse.  It was more like trace radiation.  If you’re not aware, it can slowly burn you to death.  I guess I was unwittingly comparing myself to someone or something that wasn’t really clear to me – maybe some isolated aspect of one of my musical heroes taken out of context or some vague and kingly version of myself.  Of course this feeling did not change with the size of my audience, paycheck or number of good or bad reviews.  As the late great John Hartford sang: “you can’t run away from your feet.” 

But here’s the thing: the more I coax that little critter into the light, the less I’m inclined to push or change him.  Instead, I’m opting for nothing fancy.  It’s like I’ve put a little string around my finger that says: “you’ll never be done.”   (What a relief.  Now I can finally get something done).  So when it comes right down to it, there won’t ever be anything more than the work itself.  The good practice is always the very thing we are doing, playing or writing right now.

“The way to do is to be.” – Laozi
“The way to be is to do.” – Dale Carnegie
“Do be do be do.” – Frank Sinatra

Reprogramming ourselves to “un-obsess” over some fictitious result is tricky because in reality, our labor will never bear fruit.  Because our labor IS the fruit.  There is a reason a billion and half neo-Buddhist self help books keep saying the same thing and people keep on buying them – because we clearly need to be constantly reminded.  As a culture, we are swimming in the self-absorbed desire to constantly improve ourselves.  So much so, that the pursuit itself can be what keeps us from truly improving.  A meditation-centered music practice can start to create little cracks in our egos and get us to listen more clearly.

Now I’m sure as hell not saying that I don’t have goals.  But that far-off future, and how we treat each present action are so utterly interdependent that it can be a form of insanity to view them as two separate things.  

Happy New Year everyone.  Here’s to a 2014 full of inspiration and good work. 

Tags: creativity, future tripping, now is all you have, practice, self-improvement, work, working artist