#reloving

I haven’t been feeling much love towards my physical self lately. So I took some pics in great light that show my belly and the fullness of my chest. I’m learning how to look at myself again, and how to love what I see— even as it changes daily before my eyes.

It’s one bear, by the way.

There is always a lot on my mind. If I'm not writing music, then I'm listening, analyzing, playing, or learning it. If I'm just laying in bed, then I'll stare and think for hours. I actually consider that work sometimes, and it's exhausting because I'm always trying to come up with melodies or ideas or reasons for the things around me. Seriously, last week I laid in bed from 8am until dinner. And the only reason I ate dinner is because I didn't want to die. Which got me thinking, what if I had died that day when I was 10 years old and played chicken with a friggin moving train? What if I couldn't walk after my serious BMX injury? What's the purpose of this life? Do you think string theory actually exists? Why is butter so delicious? Over the past few weeks I've been quieter here on the Tumblr. I've have copyright issues, personal issues, financial issues, creativity issues, and so much more. But I've been quiet in large part because this week I'm facing a much more intense subject to learn, or at least overcome and indulge in: The story. I'll admit, I'm not a movie-goer or book-goer, but it wasn't always like that. Last month I talked about how I don't have time - but that's nothing to brag about because if you don't use it then you lose it. And I was losing my imagination from living and working inside of a vacuum. This week, once again I laid in bed wondering why I don't consume more content - is it because I don't have anyone to attend a movie with? Is it because of my limited time? Is it because I always walk out of theaters unimpressed as if the Hollywood studios once again screwed me of my hard earned money? Whatever it comes down to, I think it's always about the overall experience, and not just the story. Primus might not write the best music in the world, but every concert of theirs is memorable. The same with a Tim Burton film, an underground rave, or a deep conversation with my closest friends. For someone like me who always talks about how writing a song or arrangement is parallel to having a conversation, I've really been trying to understand stories, and what makes them so beautiful. Music, paintings, novels, fashion, sex, love, poetry, films, science. It all has a theme. Maybe that theme isn't always linear, but it forces oneself to travel a distance to where they wind up somewhere different than where they started. A memorable story needs a memorable theme. Which is more important - a boring movie with a believable plot, or a great movie that has holes in it? To that same regard, which is more important - a meaningful orchestra song that uses sound design and therefore can't be reproduced by acoustic instruments, or a horrible orchestra song that stays true to "real world" acoustics. Film Crit Hulk is teaching me how to love stories and approach film differently again. Heavy chats with indie artists are helping me understand their work now, too. But I've learned something really powerful -it's not about the product, it's about the audience. So I'm relearning all about stories, techniques, and why things are the way they are, but I'm also learning about their communities, expectations, and adversity. After some thought this week, I'm learning that Star Wars isn't great because Luke Skywalker defended the Rebels, it was great because it made people feel and react. It wasn't the product or believability, it's our attachment to what that product is doing to us. We relate to it. We feel it. We understand it. But above all things - we remember it. My passion to have a heated argument about accidentals in sheet music is the same passion that others will have about serifs in typography or shutter speeds in photography. It's these little nuances that are worthless in the epic scope of the universe. But they matter. They matter because they're things that make our eyes open wide. They matter because they give us purpose, power, opinion, and belief. What matters to me might not matter to you, but these differences are how we discover where we each belong and what we love. To love something isn't to understand it, but it's the desire to want to understand it. I'm trying to love the story again. I'm working hard on un-thinking and re-thinking so that I can approach composition better. Not just the composition of my music for you, or of a book or painting. But the composition and architecture of life's underlying theme: a memorable story.