Curse/blessing

My mind is a variable thing.

I suppose everyone's mind is. But at a certain point in my life, I wilfully took up the practice of observing myself, even to the point of observing my changing perceptions as they shift with the currents of my life. I have not been able to establish any greater stability by doing that, but at least I can watch myself wobble all over the place.

Right now I'm in a clarity phase. I've eliminated a lot of bad habits and stepped up some good ones, and the result has been to feel like I'm seeing a lot of things really clearly. It's a treat.
Except for one thing: seeing life really clearly isn't exactly cheery most of the time. To look squarely at things as I understand them is to look deep into a terrifying abyss. And that's the trouble.

Based on the facts, there's really only one way out of the human condition: to believe in something. If you believe in something, then it's not the facts, but the story that matters. But the fact is, you can never prove that believing in something works - except by going ahead and believing in it.

The curse/blessing of the post-modern man is to have too many things to believe in, and too many reasons not to believe at all.

Being better

Anyone who's been following my recent posts knows that I've been shedding my skin. In fact, thinking about it now, I realize I've been writing about being in the midst of a big transition for probably a year or more.

So it hardly makes sense at this point to consider any new perspective I may come up with, the definitive word on where I'm headed. As a friend of mine once wisely pointed out, "Dave means what he says when he says it," and you can figure out the implications of that without my help.

But I will say this: I'm going to become a better person, I really am. It's actually becoming a huge priority for me right now. To quote Bruce Springsteen, "man, I'm just tired and bored with my self." The two biggest challenges in my musical endeavours: exhaustion, and my damned boring self.

When I hit the road again as a musician, I was almost laughably modest about it. I recorded Evergreen in front of about 11 people, and I spent just about the whole night with my eyes closed, shyly singing my songs and stringing them togther with heartfelt little true tales that I felt deeply about.

That was only the second solo show I'd done in five years. I took to the stage again at age 31 because I wanted to honour the gift of my songs, not to be a rock star. I wanted to make a contibution to the understanding of the Canadian experience, and indeed the human experience, on the basis of the richly varied life I've been so fortunate to enjoy. I wanted to let my own little light shine.

But not on myself! That was really important, and it needs to be number one again, because I'm worried I'm becoming all about me. And frankly, me doesn't deserve all the attention. See, in this business, even though I'm not particularly well-known, I've learned that I can still become a big jerk, because even if not many other people are thinking about me, I'm thinking about (and promoting) myself all the time - whether I'm making my new poster or picking the perfect t-shirt to wear on stage. Or writing in this publicly visible diary, for that matter.

Note to self: The world doesn't need another small-time guy who's all about himself. Sing your songs, tell your tales and your truth, and get on with being better.

The meaning of life

I have an unusual gift for which I am very grateful. I am sometimes able to converse with loved ones who have died, in rich and highly realistic dreams.

I have been very fortunate to feel the genuine presence of several of my own dearly departed friends and family in this way. These dreams inevitably move me very deeply, and always leave me with a sense of imparted wisdom and profound peace.

I had one of these dreams this past Saturday morning, just before waking, and it was the most profound yet. Someone quite close to me, who died not long ago, told me in this dream something I had been seeking for as long as I could remember.

Simply put, she told me the meaning of life. Not in so many words, but in terms that were as clear and as plain as the world I awoke in. This was the message of the dream, and I hope I may never forget it:

"The meaning of life is to live."

The meaning of life is to live. How simple, and how sublime. What a priceless treasure. What a timeless truth.

I hope and pray that I may repeat it and learn it and know it and love it for all of my natural days and then some.

The meaning of life is to live.

I can live with that.

I must make a grave confession

I confess that I am no longer at home in my skin. I confess that I fear I have let my talent dwindle for the sake of material concerns. I confess that what I have achieved is a tiny slice of what I have conceived. I confess that I am unable to discern what matters from what simply pours out of me. I confess that I thought myself so much better than all of this. I confess that I hardly thought I'd get this far. I confess that I fear I may never get any further.

I have striven to live as a normal man in a normal world for some years now. I have endeavoured to find peace with that. But there is no peace for me. Truly.

Blood boils in my veins. Fire leaps in my heart. You may know me as a loud, rude Ontario joker with a love for trains and trees. I guess that's what I am. But I play the guitar because my soul feels like a hurricane. I write songs because my mind is a maelstrom. My mouth moves, in words in songs in stammers in shouts because I am a puppet of every god and demon that would speak in earthly tones.

My mother and father raised a good modest churchboy with a flair for conversation and some rather odd predilections. At age 17 I turned myself out of the house and started turning myself into someone, possibly my true self, by wandering around the world like an innocent fool.

Is this the result? I see before me now a thirty-something middle class boob with a soft belly and bags under his eyes, stiff fingers that will never find virtuosity, choked words that would have raged the hypocrites out of the land if I could only have spoken them, bent at the shoulders by the weight of a mediocre life that most folks would call pretty good. What a travesty.

I have not delivered my essential message: that to live as oneself, and then beyond oneself, might be a divine thing. I don't even know if it's true. I have not found my real place, I have not offered a real vision.

I haven't even taken my new CD to the factory.

I work in a factory where they make television programs.

I hate factories. Factories were the death of craft, and art will be next.

I feel unworthy to say the word "art" out loud.

I must make a grave confession. I have wasted a lot of precious time on this pathetically short journey to the grave.