The Relative "I"

Alan Watts gave this advice on writing: “Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves.”  I’ve struggled for many years now to think of what I might write that was actually worth saying.  My wife recommended I write some advice or life lessons for my children, and recently I was inspired to do just that.  If I were hanging off the edge of that cliff, drawing a breath to shout back advice or lessons learned to the rest of the world, I’d have to say this: be happy with yourself!  There is no greater happiness in life.  Life is a journey.  And if there is any meaning or purpose to this journey, it comes in two parts. The first part is to find yourself and figure out who you are.  And in case that wasn’t hard enough, the second part i...

The Adventure Begins My adventures in drumming began in earnest this past Fall. Like everyone else who was stuck inside during COVID, I was looking for new hobbies and the idea of learning to play drums started taking hold. I had just started using GarageBand to try and make songs and was impressed with the YouTube videos where people would re-create classic songs in this software. They almost always started with a drum beat, and when they talked about putting a kick on the 1 & 3 and a backbeat on the 2 & 4, I realized how little I knew about how drum beats were made. I also thought often of the nights I used to stay up late playing Drum Hero and Rock Band on Playstation, and remembering how much fun I had pretending to play drums for a large concert audience. This inspired me to pick up my first drum set: an Alesis Nitro Mesh Kit. I picked it up in person from Guitar Center on sale for somewhere between $300-350, and it was a ton of fun. I also signed up for online les...