Episodes

  • Give this to a sleeping artist.

    Give this to a sleeping artist.
    Oct 5 2023
    Give this to a sleeping artist.Perhaps it's your time.There are 3 acts of every artist's journey. Act 1: Asleep Act 2: Awakening Act 3: Awakened Act 1: You create work as a selfish artist at home. You think your work is exceptional and are owed money and fame. You may hoard your work in your drawer or under your bed. You are bitter that other artists are famous, but you are not. You are just as good as them but poor and unhappy.Your work is about you and your struggle to wake up. You create work about your heartbreaks, bad parents, and the unfairness of life and mimic songs of love and devotion. And you dare to call that art.*Eventually, you have enough and want to collect what is owed. You realize that no one will discover and pick you. You know that no one will come and make you rich and famous. Now, you take matters into your own hands. You use social media to show yourself and your work. You follow the rules to get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But no one wants your selfish work. It is ugly.So now you try and force that ugly work onto people, perhaps with ads and shouting, pretty makeup, dancing, screaming, and showing your beautiful life in pictures and videos. 'Look at me!' you say. But they look away.You realize that something does not rhyme. You spent your entire childhood chasing a dream, and it eludes you. You put in the 10,000 hours, for God's sake! Where is your price? So, you start to contemplate your approach. Who is your work for? Who are you delighting? You think perhaps you are selfish. And you are.You consume content about online business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. You explore what artists have done that 'made it.' You get into self-development and perhaps meditation. You feel that this approach lightens the grips of selfishness, and you relax into your work. Your work starts to change.You learn that commerce is about solving problems. You understand that to solve your issue of acquiring money and fame, you need to get money and attention from someone. You know that for someone to give you money, you must provide them value. You understand that for someone to pay attention to you, you must help them get what they want. Your work starts to become about others and not about yourself.You struggle to monetize your art as it is not made for such commerce. Art is gift-giving, and your awakening artist's heart knows that. So you explore creating products and services around your art to make money so you finally have time to make art. Perhaps you start teaching or coaching, create courses and communities, and maybe make money.You know this cannot be it. This is not what you signed up for. You signed up for art, artistry, and the life of an artist. Yet you make barely any art. Perhaps you make barely any money. Maybe you are lost in money making. Either way, you do need money. Keep your business alive for now. Keep your part-time job even if it is unbearable.  The only way out of your dilemma is to enter Act 2. * Express any topic! The intention behind the work is what matters. The state you create works in matters. Topics are dances of creativity. Sex and joy are as sacred as god and love.  Act 2: A life of service and gift-giving awaits you, which is quite joyous. It is what artists do, and you are an artist.You pick a group of people and delight them with your art. You are specific! You decide to devote your life to them through art. This is scary as you are now exposing yourself to that group, and they respond. You get feedback, and that hurts. Perhaps your work is not as good as you thought it was.You take all your might and keep making and sharing your work because that is what you do now. You often feel so much pain that you repeatedly run back to Act 1 until you eventually stop running. You use feedback from your people and ignore all other opinions. You simply serve and want to delight them with what you create selflessly. It is not about you anymore; it is about them. They start to appreciate you for it.Your work now becomes your gift. It becomes good enough for your fans to love and share it. Positive feedback and word of mouth kick in slowly. This is not the overnight success you dream of, but you are delighted and happy serving your fans. This is different from the breakthrough success, dollar signs, or amount of attention you wanted; for some reason, you are content. You keep serving your fans.Perhaps you get the reward of money with your art, but that is not why you do the work. You do it for the sake of doing it. Perhaps you build a selfless business around your craft out of joy. You overflow, so you give of yourself, perhaps as a product or service. Maybe you just share, and people want to give back to you. You can choose to monetize your craft. That is up to you.  Sneakily, you mature into Act 3.  Act 3: You lost yourself in your work, and that is good. You are no more when you create your work. You flow with life, and the wind is in your ...
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    22 mins
  • The choice is yours.

    The choice is yours.
    Oct 1 2023
    The choice is yours.

    Every emotion/ every mood is a problem to solve, and the answer is the album/ the body of work. 


    Art is for the recipient. A specific someone. One you seek to delight with your specific work. Your intention is to cause change to a specific someone. You choose who you serve, but you need to choose.

    Selfish art, on the other hand, has no intention to serve or help. It is created selfishly without the purpose of delighting someone specific. That work will find no footing and will fade away in all the noise. It won’t give money or fame to the creator of the art. Selfish artists often crave money and fame but fail to notice that their selfishness is precisely why they get left behind. Selfish work is about the creator of the work. Selfless work is for the person the artist seeks to change. 

    The choice is yours.

    Fame.


    • It’s just a collection of songs that makes an artist. It’s just a body of work that makes an artist.

    • Selfish art is about the creator of the art. Real art is. It is complete work. Nothing can possibly be added. It was conceived alone and is consumed alone. It is complete in and of itself. It needs no advocate.

    • You can either win on quality or on fame. But fame follows quality in time. In other words: quality gets you fame, fame doesn’t get you quality.

     

    Songs
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    2 mins
  • Life is simple.

    Life is simple.
    Sep 30 2023
    Break your chains and make great art.

    As you tone it down to make your father feel more comfortable. As you tone it down to make your friends not laugh. As you tone it down to keep the voices quiet. As you review your work in all its quirks, the strong points, and the solid stance  -you realize you will offend someone -perhaps you were too vulnerable. 

    Before you rub out all the beauty, consider my friend -that it's not for them. 
    Great art rarely comes with a feeling of safety. Great art always cuts people the wrong way. 
    Some, that is. But for the ones it's really for -it heals their wounds and mends their hearts. 

    Break your chains and make great art.

     

    An artist is hiding, I can see him peeking through

    When I look away his heart is almost dreaming
    Of freedom in art

    Life is simple, it's you that made it complicated
    It's you that made it hard, it's you who broke your heart

    I gotta wake you up, shake your heart, come alive we need you
    You're our hero, young Neo, step into the light

    Life is simple, it's you that made it complicated
    It's you that made it hard, it's you who broke your heart
    Simple, it's you that made it complicated, it's you that made it hard
    It's you who broke your heart

    In a home full of love, doing what I love
    With someone that I love, that's what I call

    Simple, it's you that made it complicated
    What you want also seems to want you back
    It's you who broke your heart
    Start making art

    Dadadada,
    It's you that made it complicated
    Dadadada,
    It's you who broke your heart
    Start making art

    Songs
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    4 mins
  • The city cries.

    The city cries.
    Sep 30 2023
    What a delight.

    The Industrial Age is over. The Big Fish are dying.
    You own the means of production. You own the means of distribution.
    No one can stop you but you. No gates. No keepers.

    What will you uniquely provide? Who will you uniquely delight?

     

    I feel no shame carrying no name
    I've lived a hundred lives
    A cat falling on its feet
    That's worth a hundred times

    The city cries
    The approval-seeking empty eyes
    The city cries
    The 'do your job & we pay you' lies
    The city cries
    Who's the real man in the industry?

    The city cries
    The approval-seeking empty eyes
    The city cries
    The 'do your job & we pay you' lies
    The city cries
    Who's the real cog in the industry?

    Songs
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    3 mins
  • Real commerce is gift-giving.

    Real commerce is gift-giving.
    Sep 30 2023
    Real commerce is gift-giving.

    Give gifts. That's the game.
    The more you give the more you become the artist you seek to be.
    Your songs, your works of art, your paintings, and your pamphlets are gifts.
    Gift-giving is real commerce, given that the gift is complete work.


    When creating complete work you give and you get at the same time.
    When complete work finds its host it appears effortlessly. The host simply steps aside. The host feels as if he has not touched the work, simply brought it to the world. The host steps aside and conceives the gift. The receiver steps aside and consumes the gift. There is no commerce. And that is real commerce.
    As gifts are received and consumed alone they need no advocate. Complete work always finds its way to where it is needed. Real artists perhaps call that helping hands.


    It is important to understand that selfish artists will never touch complete work. Instead of gift giving they participate in hole-filling. The work is about them and their story. From their art, they hope to get something. By that the gift eludes them and they grow bitter making art. Perhaps what they make is not art at all.

    The intention behind your creation matters. Simply give your gift to god, and choose a life of service. Your art can be your gift. Serve the world instead of filling holes. The only spiritual discipline you need is gift-giving.

    Real artists give gifts. They have come to heal parts of themselves that make them available to real creation. Real creation is complete creation, the healing arts. 

    Gifts don't leave the world. They are recognized as gifts by everyone, hence they are cherished. 
    Real art is. God is. And real commerce is gift-giving.

    Songs

     
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    4 mins