After coming down from the high of performing at Bumbershoot, along with working extremely long, stressful and depleting hours in the studio all of august, I was burnt out. I took a break. That was needed. But the stress and lack of patience that accompanied the time period prior to Bumbershoot remained. After a little self evaluation, and a good old “what am I doing with my life” breakthrough/breakdown, I realized I’m extremely disconnected. Disconnected to myself. Disconnected to my purpose. And most importantly, disconnected to God.

Fear and anxiety. I’m drowned in them. After talking to a friend the other night, I realized that they’re both stemming from either the past or the future. Although I believe with everything in the power of music and the effect is has on people’s lives, the business and marketing aspect is done primarily for self serving purposes. After the process of making the music, you have to push it. And although the creating stage is (hopefully) coming from the heart, it’s a different story when you’re trying to spread it to the masses.

Lately my intent has been to feed the ego and gain validation through an image. And this image is manipulated by Twitter posts, vindicated by blog reviews, and relieved by myspace plays, all on public forums that define who I am. But this is not me. This does not scratch the surface. Everything is based on other peoples perception of where I am on the invisible hierarchal staircase of “success.” And this is determining my happiness, altering my self esteem and giving me an identity. The thing is, none of it is real. I know this. But I’ve forgotten in action, and I need some discipline to remember.

So, I’m doing a Vipassana 10 day silent meditation starting tomorrow. I did it back in 2006 and it was the most challenging experience I’ve ever had, and also the most rewarding. So I’m going back. And this time it isn’t just to detox from drugs and alcohol. It’s to detox the mind, that has been rotting with an artificial self. I gotta get to the real one again. I’m an extremely unbalanced dude, so instead of doing some yoga and chugging wheat grass, I’m going out to the woods to eat vegetarian food, wake up at 4am and meditate silently for 10 days to find it. Hopefully I’ll come back stronger and get closer to who I’m aiming at becoming. If you’re interested, here’s some info, schedule and rules on the Vipassana. For more info go to http://www.kunja.dhamma.org/

If I’m not connected to God, there is no music. If I’m not making music, I’m not being of service (to my utmost potential). If I’m not being of service, I will never know God. If I never know God, I am not fulfilling my purpose on this earth. If I’m purposeless there’s no reason for me to be here…and I’m just wasting a perfectly good Twitter username that someone else could have.

*Artwork done by Treeseah