Somewhere, uh, Musically, Beyond Grunge: II

How do we get unstuck and in touch with our own sense of inspiration? For some people, the first step is to acknowledge feeling stuck. For others, it is to notice the moments when they do feel at least hints or flickers or whispers of inspiration and to follow those hints. If you take my walls and fluidity description, you can be very consistent in looking for cracks in the walls and looking for places where water seeps through. Earlier, I wrote about the process of PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE. You can take ANY moment, anything you notice and choose, as a sign to begin priming for inspiration. Got despair? That's a sign that you want change. Got hope? Another sign. That sort of perspective leads to priming oneself for the actuality of change rather than letting change or inspiration remain as some idealized thing that doesn't seem to touch your life. When you start thinking of yourself as someone who wants inspiration and therefore takes anything as a sign to look for inspiration, we star flowing through a different form than the form of suffering. That attitude/perspective and the priming it allows is a beginning, but it's not the whole process.

Once you begin seeing your life circumstances and internal reactions as signs that show you as an individual who is looking for inspiration, the question moves to that of how you can begin truly engaging inspiration. There are two major ways that we can engage. The first is to hold onto our walls for as long as possible, to allow "mind" to pile up behind our walls like water piling up behind a dam. The longer we try to stay the same, the more the pressure builds. And eventually the dam breaks. That can be terrifying and exciting. Because the psychological universe is closer to how dreams work than actually facing a real flood, death is not a serious concern even if it is a fear. We--unrealistically--fear that "I" may die when the walls of my self-identity are broken. Think of how often you have felt fear in a dream. How many times has that fear-in-a-dream lead to your actual death? Fear concerning losing our self-identity's walls is like that. It is more likely to lead to us waking up than actual death. Are you curious about what is outside those walls, wondering who might be there with you when you wake up, considering walking out your front door?

So one way is a sort of "forced change" when life breaks something in us. These breaks can lead to breakthroughs or breakdowns. Since I'm not a big fan of breakdown in my own life, I tend to recommend steady change. Let a little water in or out, take the walls down piece by piece until you are certain that change is nothing to fear and can't be avoided anyway. Change is not something that happens to you; it is you. Mind moves; you cannot spiritually be leashed any more than the nature of water can be leashed, although you might pretend to be leashed or imprisoned. There is no way to actually fight the movement of time. Utilizing receptive states or moments of receptivity allows us to take change when we are most open to change--but make no mistake, change is happening to us all when we are aware of it or not. The dam may not be breaking at this moment, but water pressure is building.

Now, some of you are wondering, "In all of this talk of fluidity and universes and change, what about that fountain of youthfulness?" Let's get back to that. Inspiration is the fountain of youthfulness--pure and simple, natural. When we feel inspired, we live; when we don't, we age. Another way of describing it is to say that trying to remain small, trying to remain within the psychological walls of our chosen self-identity, cuts us off from the normal and continual replenishment that comes from exchange and flow within the entire universe of imagination in which we live. Take a moment with that idea: we live in a universe of imagination, our minds are constantly and unavoidably fed by the universe of anything-being-possible. The challenging part of that is that it means if we imagine or idealize God, part of the power in our psychological universe resides in "God". That's okay, but it means that we will want to commune with God in order to feel our power, to feel alive. The catch is that if you can imagine evil, you will have to relate to evil--you won't be able to simply set it outside your walls and keep it there forever. The pressure will build up, and nothing that men can build will last forever. The things we try to set aside are powerful, just as the things we try to draw near are powerful.

Rumi suggested dealing with everything that comes to your door as a guest. That includes external circumstances as well as our internal reactions to circumstances. What sort of mindset does it take to invite God in or accept that invitation to come out? What sort of mindset does it take to admit that evil is not only somewhere outside of my house, to admit that evil is as much within me as without?

It's been very interesting to grow up with Grunge as the most unique and defining musical influence for me, descriptive of my age cohort. (Rap may be as defining of a musical moment, but rap began earlier and seems more lasting.) I'm really enjoying Chris Cornell's solo work lately. Overall, Grunge strikes me as less resilient than the Blues. It's more of a dirge, like singing for one's own funeral. And Curt Cobain is certainly one of the defining characters whose life and music defines Grunge. But if you maintain through that Zeitgeist, if all of what goes into angst and disappointment with life and resignation doesn't break you, you come out the other side changed. And there is something to be said for Dave Grohl and Chris Cornell not only singing about hearts and butterflies. There's something real about Grunge, and something real about making a good life for your self, maybe getting married and living in France, maybe making music somewhere, uh, I guess one could say "beyond Grunge".