I found a recording of my voice on my phone when I was looking for old song material to use. I thought I would share what I said, because I don’t know where it came from, but it was visceral and kind of helped me today, when I was feeling a bit dark.*

I think it applies to what I want to do for myself and what I hope by doing, will inspire other people, too. If I died tomorrow, I would want to know that I tried my best to ignite sparks where sparks could be ignited.

(*There is cussing in here, but this is my native dialect when I’m super passionate about something in my own company. Read ahead if you don’t mind.)

My creative mission.

I don’t know if this is a selfish endeavor, but I want people to break the mold of scripted society. If I help other people break the mold of this system, this wheel that keeps us grinding and denying who we truly are … there are some people who want to be on the wheel, but there are those that don’t, and they don’t know how to get off of it. They are trying to fit themselves into a box that doesn’t work and then they question themselves, these beautiful artistic people.

I don’t mean just writers and musicians. I mean photographers, wanderers, hikers, mountain bikers, anybody who has a dream that they want to do in this fucking life, here, on this world: Anyone who has a dream, I want to help them do that dream. I want to help them let go of the paper fucking money part and realize that if you think and dream big, the universe will let you in. If you try hard enough, if you’re persistent, you have a chance. You have to try.

Things will stop you, it may take years to get what you want. It might take so much persistence. Here I am, thirty years old, and I thought that by 17, I would be a successful musician or a writer or have a book or be a poet. (I’m just now starting to realize these dreams, if you define success as enjoying your art, spending a ton of time doing your art, getting it out there, collaborating with other people.)

Things take much longer than we think they do. We take detours, but this society wants us to think that it’s fast, that you have to be a genius, that you’re just born with it.

Sure, there are entrepreneur geniuses, there’s somebody who took piano lessons at four and by five they are writing concertos,  there could be somebody that for some reason they apply themselves and get it at a young age, but for the rest of us, for most of us, in this life, we get stuck doing things that we don’t want to do. We get stifled, we get weighted down, we forget what it was like to hike through the forest and look at the trees, that being on this world is beautiful damn-it. It’s awesome.

So why do we fit ourselves in these boxes for people who don’t give a crap about us, who could replace us in a second. Why drive a big fancy car, buy more stuff, get mired with envy by advertisements, why, why do we do it? Because we want to be a part of, right? Or because we were told that there’s no other way. That you can’t make any money following your dreams, because we have kids, because we have spouses, we have people we need to take care of. And God, there are times when we do. We do have to do things in this life that we don’t want to do.

But say you were never going to be paid for what you did, say that we all got an equal amount of pay from the time we were born, to be anything. What would you be? What would you do?

Do that.

Just do it.

Even if you don’t want to do writing or photography or music for a living. You don’t have to. The way that the system is set up, you can only make so much money anyway, even though our society runs on music and words and movies and art.

What is going to last?

Who cares if you get paid for it or not? If it fuels you, if it inspires you to be something or somebody, if it gives you new life, if it helps you go to that retail job and talk to other people and sell the shit out of some coffee, do it. Don’t lose yourself being something that you don’t want to be. Why do that?

Who told you that you have to sacrifice the one life you have? What if there is nothing after this life? Who told you you had to sacrifice this life to fit into a model that nobody really cares if you’re in or not, that this is just the way that it is? Why is nobody questioning this?

(I’m not advocating a big screw-the-man hippie movement. I believe that if we do what we feel we are here to do, we will be invigorated and better able to cope with this world, no matter what we get paid or have to do for a day job.)

We’re still living with the aftermath of the industrial revolution. Great things have happened, but we’re not machines. Machines are taking our jobs. Don’t be one. We can’t compete with a machine.

You can’t be a drone and you can’t beat yourself up for not being a drone.

I’m inspired to help people not get stuck when it comes to believing in their creative pursuits. Because I’ve been stuck and I know how it feels. I know how it feels to be on the outside of a society that doesn’t seem to care about anybody. I think that so many of us feel this way, but we feel that we’re alone, that nobody would understand why we feel this way. I don’t get it.

(I don’t claim to understand our current system. I know there are some rules that are good, that are in place for a reason. But I don’t think that we should give up on the things that make us tick, make us feel like we’re doing what we were meant to do, and many people have things that they feel they were meant to do but are afraid to do them for some reason — fear of rejection, starvation, existentialism, depression…I’m speaking to those people. Music, writing, art: these things can contribute to anyone’s life on any scale. Give it a shot. We all have to start or continue somewhere.)