The One, Success, and Becoming an Artist

As a kid I had many fleeting dreams of my future.

Archeologist, Scientist, Animal Trainer, and Philosopher just to name a few.

But the one passion that out shined the rest was playing the drums.

I'm not sure where it came from but I was always tapping out some internal rhythm with my hands and feet.

The groove was inside me and it wanted out.

In my ears and in my imagination I could hear perfectly what I wished to express but my ear to body coordination just didn't jive.

I remember struggling to feel in my body what I felt in my soul but the two never seemed to meet.

Then one day as I was noodling on my crappy little drum set, something clicked.

In fact the expression “Something Clicked” is quite literal in my experience,

What musicians call a “Click Track” meaning the relentless equal pulse of silence and sound seemed to

turn on within me and at that moment my ear and my body were in the groove.

I could feel measures of time pass as I played without having to think about it or verbally count it out.

I felt illuminated.

What was this feeling? Where did it come from? Where does it exist?

The Archeologist in me started to search musical history for evidence of this phenomenon's origins.

The Scientist in me started to analyze and experiment with different formulas of the phenomenon.

The Animal Trainer in me drilled, punished and rewarded the phenomenon into me.

And the Philosopher in me rationalized the realization that I had found the singularity of everything.

I had discovered The One.

The one is everything everywhere all the time. It begins and ends. It's the journey and the return.

It is the cycle of creation. It is creating and the creator.

And it was at this moment that I first felt the intoxication of Success.

In my mind I had arrived. I had made it.

I could have quit right there. I had reached my life's apex. I had done what I set out to do.

As new dreams began to form within me I maintained the presence of the One.

I stood up from behind the drums and picked up the guitar.

Rhythm became Harmony and then Melody.

Melody became Lyric which became Voice.

More dreams were born.

Composing, Arranging, Recording, Mixing, Directing, Producing.

All the while succeeding in maintaining the One.

The One that feels.

The One that creates.

The One that is eternal.

The One is

The Artist.