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A Letter To My Younger Self

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Dear Toby,

“Success” is a quicksilver term it means so many things to different people, yet ostensibly everyone in our society wants it. The danger I see is that if you are not very careful in defining what counts as success you will spend a large amount of your life chasing a phantom. Further, the idea of success can be problematic if a bunch of separate objectives become fused. This fusion can result in a situation where you have achieved much but still feel like you have in some ultimate sense failed, as you have not achieved the totality of the merged goals. Thinking like this can rob yourself appreciation of the good things you have done. Further, the thrill and luminosity that comes from having achieved something is fleeting sensation; the work that must happen to achieve something worthwhile will take far longer. In light of this, you must enjoy the process of what you are working towards. For if you are working hard to get where you want to go the majority of life will be taken up with preparing to achieve your goals, no sooner do you reach the summit than you look to the next horizon, no sooner do you gain something than you are grasping after the next thing. Enjoy the ride, try and have some fun once in a while.

Appreciate what you have right now for no one knows what tomorrow will bring. Be kind to yourself; beating yourself up achieves nothing. Having compassion for yourself does not entail compromising on yours standards. Negativity in whatever form it takes may move you closer to the things you desire but the cost to your mental state will be great. Fight for what you want but do not be taken in the by the world of form the law of change means that everything that is with you now will one day dissolve. Do not rely to temporary things for ultimate satisfaction. It is entirely possible to achieve everything you set out to accomplish and still be miserable, the ego can never be truly satisfied, its thirst is only quenched for briefly. Happiness is a choice that must be made anew each day.

Life will test you to see what you are prepared to sacrifice in order to come closer to your dream, at times you will feel inches away from the end only to have your progress erased in a instant. Do not be discouraged, rebuild yourself and steel yourself to fight another day. It is only by going through such trials that you can ever be truly deserving of victory. Focus on your own path, other people will unwittingly place their own expectations and prejudices on you. Sometimes people will actively try and sabotage you for as Steven Pressfield writes:

“The reason is that they are struggling, consciously or unconsciously, against their own Resistance. The awakening writer’s success becomes reproach to them… The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap from the rim of the bucket1.” You must not let the opinions of other people drive what you do, trust your intuition. The bolder the plan or vocation you choose to pursue the more opposition life will throw at you, you are being tested. For years you may wonder why you persist walking down and such a marginal and arduous path. Remember this, life without struggle is meaningless. Perhaps you will even look back on these times one day with nostalgia as you remember a simpler time in your life. No matter what life throws at you do not become ungrateful or jaded, for such attitudes, however well justified, will ultimately prevent you from enjoying the good things in life.

Look after yourself financially but do let money be the primary signal that you pay attention to for this will ultimately lead on a diversionary path that will take you further away from where you actually want to go. Remember Francis Bacon’s words that “money is a great servant but a bad master.” Have empathy for other people for now matter how cruel they are towards you they are themselves victims also, either of a past event or their own ego. Hatred of others is merely self hatred in disguise. For you and other people share the same essence, so by directing aggression towards others your are judging yourself. This negativity has nothing to do with judgements concerning the rightness or wrongness of someone’s action, you can hold whatever moral judgement is appropriate for the situation without it being tinged with negativity.

Do not grasp any situation too tightly allow things to take their natural course and success and failure to come and go as they please. You cannot control what happens outside of yourself but can control how you respond to what happens, self sovereignty is having control on how you respond to events. Luck if a fickle thing it will raise you up in one instant and then lay you low in the next. By taking positive action you can create good luck but there is a certain hard mysterious aspect of luck which is out of your control. Contrary to popular mythology success does not always come to those who deserve it. Regard the noble list of past masters, how many of them achieved recognition in their own time? How many were only recognized after their death? How many had the fruits of their success stolen from them? Remember also the vast ranks of the mediocre who are heralded as great.

Practice self awareness, you are only free to the extent that you can master and understand yourself. If you cannot you are destined to be mastered by other forces. Be careful how you spend your time and what you focus on for this will ultimately determine the course of your life.

In closing, test and weigh whatever guidance you receive , find joy in simple things and follow your heart.

What I Am Listening To, August 2022

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Recently I have had the good fortune of hearing some great new music that has been released this year and hearing for the first time some exciting albums from the past for the first time.

One of these great albums from the past is the mysterious Astral Weeks by Van Morrison. Describing this album is a difficult task as it is truly unusual folk elements are seamlessly blended with jazz. This disparate mix stylistic elements are integrated seamlessly so that none of the choices in the album feel forced. Most of the songs are centered around one harmonic progression that is continuously repeated and is gradually enhanced by other instrumental parts orbiting around it. This gives the music a surreal trance like feeling.

Another album I have recently got my hands on is the much anticipated new release by Porcupine Tree Closure/Continuation (I have already written about Harridan in an earlier post). The most obvious change since their previous outing is that Steven Wilson is playing the bass on all the tracks. This makes the album feel strangely more like one of Wilson’s solo release than a Porcupine Tree album, he and Nick Beggs (the bass player from his solo band) usually play with a pick and slight distortion this approach gives the tracks a very specific flavour. Also, when compared with Porcupine Tree’s previous bass player Colin Edwin Wilson’s approach is far more aggressive (the lines are far busier than Edwin’s) and on top of the beat which puts the bass in a very different relationship with the drums.

However, this is balanced out by the contributions by the other band members I think the most accurate description of the album is that it sounds like amalgamation of Steven Wilson’s solo aesthetic and Porcupine Tree. However, matters are further complicated by the fact that Porcupine Tree was originally a solo project and even when it became a band Steven Wilson still wrote the majority of the material and determined the overall artistic direction of the band. In light of this, one way of looking at the band is as a manifestation of one aspect of Steven Wilson’s work coloured by the varying levels of collaboration with the other band members.

According to a recent interview this album has been a true collaboration between all of the band. This might help explain whilst after a couple of listens this album feels so familiar to me but also very different from the band’s previous work. There is no overall conceptual theme uniting the tracks and the music is not as riff focused as the last few albums by the band. Sonically, the guitars sound a lot dryer than previously. The same is true of the drum sound, it is sounds far less produced than the some of their earlier like In Absentia. The directness of the sound can make the album grating to listen to, although perhaps I will change my mind once I have spent more time with the music.

The biggest criticism I have of Closure/Continuation is the lyrics; they are often simplistic in their imagery and structure. In Harridan Wilson sings of a “Gold man” biting down on a “silver tongue”. Another strange lyrically choice occurs in Herd Culling with the line “secure the homestead”. Steven Wilson likes to work quickly, this has enabled him to produce an incredible volume of work but also means that some of songs he releases are very unpolished and lacking in finesse. I say this with full awareness that it is easy to take pot shots at someone else’s work, however, it would be dishonest of me not to voice these criticisms.

I must also acknowledge some of my attitudes towards this album do not purely come from a place of disinterested analysis. For example, there is something about the song “Dignity” that I am strongly prejudiced against, namely, the humorous aspect that is introduced into an otherwise tragic story of homelessness. This is particularly evident in the line “While we wait for the light to turn green” this lyric introduces a certain air of triviality to the song that a quaint stereotypically British feel that I find repulsive. Further, the end of the line being rhymed with the “seen” from the previous line is too easy. This simple use of rhyme further adds to the feeling of triviality.

Criticisms aside, Richard Barbieri’s contributions to the album elevated the music and add a layer of complexity that elevates the album into a more conceptual territory that makes it more than “just another rock album”. In particular, the sequencer part it Harridan is masterfully juxtaposed with the drum part and gives the listener relief from the more guitar-centric sections in the music. The ambient textures he produces in Walk The Plank are in sympathy with the nautical theme of the song and give the music a spacious feel.

On the deluxe edition of the album there are two tracks that are in my opinion better than any of the tracks on than the core album. I especially, like Love In The Past Tense the rhythmic signature at the start of the track reminds the song Deadwing it has a similar feeling of spaciousness which is created by main rhythmic feel of song being broken up by sharp musical punctuation. Never Have is also excellent and could have easily replaced any of the tracks on the standard version of the album. Whilst there are flaws with Closure/Continuation it a strong album and definitely worth a listen.

I have also been listening to the excellent, if somewhat disorientating album Async by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The album is based on concept of pair music occurring at different tempos and other experimentations. A couple of tracks feature poetic reflections set to music, some are very jarring like disintegration whilst others such as LIFE LIFE are more “conventional” relative to rest of the album. The music industry is full of release that aspire to be little more than mere entertainment, Async is a pure work of art and an exhibition of musical depth and taste that servers inditement of the superficial and shallow. I am looking forward to listening to more music by Sakamoto. If you have any suggestions as to what I should be listening to next please leave a comment.

The Dangers of Didactic Music and Other Reflections

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Ideology

In this piece I want to discuss what might can be wrong aesthetically with art that is too subservient to a particular purpose. Specifically, how ideological elements if not handled carefully can obscure the beauty of a work.

An example of this is the hymn Jerusalem by Hubert Parry which I have already discussed in an earlier post. The repurposing of Blake’s poetry to narrowly patriotic ends does violence to the original meaning of Blake’s words and turns what is an incendiary and revolutionary piece into a work of dumb patriotism. Ideological messages must be handled subtly, especially, in the cases where the concern being referenced is current. The often what seemed relevant and perhaps provocative at the time will seem dated and even silly in the future. For example, the album Fear of a Blank Planet by Porcupine Tree. The themes of teenage alienation, drug use and addiction to the digital world and the expense of the real are heavily referenced throughout the album. At time of the albums release in 2007 it was in tune with the times and the early stages the ever expanding influence of digital technology in peoples’ lives, especially the younger generations. Looking back on it now in the era of smart phones the concerns of the album seem very prescient, but at the same, time quaint, given the total invasion of technology and particularly smart phones into our lives. In a world of constant distractions and interruptions it is harder than ever to concentrate and focus on difficult and worthwhile tasks. It is far easier to be swept away by the tide of notifications and click bait.

The music of Fear of a Blank Planet is at times so heavily weighted towards the didactic that the purely musical elements of the album are overshadowed by the repetition of the album’s themes. The music is, at times, very subtle; the lyrics are often not. It is this sentiment caused my friend to describe the album as “puerile” as the dystopian portrayal of a broken childhood it explores can seem to be and exaggerated caricature of reality. On the other hand, conflict is the essence of drama; it cannot be created by a reasonable sentiments alone. To create a compelling work a certain amount of exaggeration is often necessary. The criticism of the album I would offer is that the same message could have be conveyed less obviously. At times it feels that the listener is being beaten over the head with the same basic ideas continuously.

There is no greater example of this than Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged. What narrative that exists is poorly written and merely acts as a cypher for Rand’s clunky and simplistic philosophy. At one point a character via a radio broadcast lectures on various ideological topics for an entire chapter. No action or plot development occurs, the reader is subjected to a rambling sermon that provides among other ideological curiosities yet another superficial interpretation of The Garden of Eden.

By contrast, a work that is not guilty of this sin is The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, it explores an alternative reality where the Axis Powers have won World War II. Racism is one of the main themes of the book. Throughout the narrative the reader is given glimpses of the genocidal program the Nazis have carried out after their victory, but the audience is never shown the full extent of the horrors they have inflicted on the world. This allows the reader’s imagination fill in the gaps that the author leaves in the descriptions of these events making this aspect of the story more impactful without slowing down the plot due to historical detours. As Shakespeare once wrote “brevity is the soul of wit”.

Biography

In the age of social media the confessional and explicit seems to be prioritised over the obscure and artistic. It used to be that all you could ever find out about an artist was whatever could be gleaned from print media, the radio, and liner notes in albums. Now almost any conceivable detail of a musicians life can be googled. However, it must be said that you can be armed with all the biographical and historical information about an artist but fail to understand their work if you do not pay attention to the purely aesthetic aspects of it. It is easy to make the mistake of fallaciously linking a miscellaneous quality in a work to some biographical detail.

For example, Nietzsche famously went insane at the end of his life, many think this is a consequence of the nihilistic ideas he proposed, but it is also entirely possible he went mad for some other reason. Perhaps his philosophy was merely a contributing factor aggravating some existing predisposition to insanity. When considering an event of past our minds a inclined to create a coherent narrative out of events that may have been entirely disconnected. Further, there is a tendency for over time one idea or interpretation to come cemented in our thinking simply repetition. The idea that Nietzsche’s philosophy caused his madness has now been repeated so many times that is gained a level of acceptance that is merely due to constant recapitulation. This tendency is reinforced by our predisposition that once we have found a specific detail that supports our argument to “anchor” our pre-existing judgement based on it. Many people do not like Nietzsche’s philosophy as it is anti-religious and very critical of altruistic behavior. Whatever the logical merits or deficiencies of his philosophy critics of his ideas are eager to seek any route to justify their aversion to his ideas, his madness being one such detail. The example of other philosophers with a nihilistic aspect to their thinking such as Schopenhauer, who did not go insane is often ignored.

In Nietzsche’s case, I am not suggesting that it is impossible that his philosophical ideas could not have driven him to madness. Rather, I am merely cautioning against jumping to certain conclusions too easily without strong evidence.

To return to our previous topic of discussion, forcing art to serve other purposes apart from the the purely aesthetic can lead to a dilution of the work’s beauty. I must caveat what I am saying here by acknowledging that there are many good counter examples to my suggestion, the most obvious being religious art: it clearly serving an ideological purpose but is nonetheless a genre that has many works of great beauty. In my defense, I would say that in such cases the beauty of work is transcending the purely ideological, although the subject matter must of course inform any considered appreciation of a work.

Further, ignoring the purely aesthetic dimensions of art in favor of historical details can also lead to interpretive mistakes.

In the world of beauty, ideology must be a slave of the aesthetic.