Passionate Living

LIFE is about stories. It’s about sharing the experience we experience, spreading the love we feel, and enduring the dynamics of the drama. The human heart is inherently fascinated by stories, and how we can learn from the morals and apply the principles and values in our lives.

THE BIBLE is said to be the Greatest Story Ever Told. True, religion gains widespread acceptance through relating stories of the prophets and their miracles, and the outcome that happened to all previous advanced cultures. From these stories in the holy scriptures, each succeeding generation of believers continue their practice in their faith and try to spread the message to those who are willing to listen.

A GREAT STORY is a great story, and with today’s technology the way with which we conduct storytelling is much more advanced than before – as can be seen from the latest major blockbuster success: James Cameron’s Avatar. When before we only relied on drawings, then parchments and open air plays, then evolved to recorded music and pictures, now we can take advantage of moving images and even augmented reality to help us tell our stories. The boundaries in which we can share our experiences are being broken down part by part, day by day.

Low technology high value

However, the greatest stories remain great centuries and even millennia after their release. Much of popular culture products today are based on and inspired by works of great art by great artists in the past. Many movies are remakes of previous classics, or are the modern interpretation of a thousand year old folklore, and much music are cover versions of previous great hits.

One of my favorite stories is Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. This seminal work and masterpiece by the Italian poet is considered to be the foundation with which the modern Italian dialect is built upon. Today, The Divine Comedy has been infused in many popular culture products, such as in the film “Hannibal” and even made into a video game with the title “Dante’s Inferno“.

Dante and His Poem by Michelino

At the time of release, many artists made paintings that illustrate Dante’s journey into the three circles of Hellfire, Purgatory, and Paradise. When I look at these paintings, they still fascinate me and still inspire as much imagination, plot-line, and lessons, perhaps even more than a modern, 3-Dimensional documentary would. The animation captured in these images, and the words in the text, remain of high value even though low technology.

The authenticity of the experience

Other great works include Homer’s “Iliad“, or Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo” if you prefer something more “modern”. Even with today’s technology, these classics are much more enjoyable in their original form than when I see them in a modern form, such as movies or animation. It makes me think about the value of a story, since by being a songwriter, I become a story teller by default.

The essence of a great story is what makes it great. It’s not the software we use to create, it’s not the platforms we sign up to for publishing, and it’s not the technology that helps us distribute the work around the world. It’s about the fundamental human experience that shapes our character, and the authenticity of the experience and the desire to share.

I like seeing great works, and I would like to say I appreciate the art in them (although this is an art-form in itself, and may take years to develop a sensitive taste in these great stories). Understanding the essence of a great story can help us to create better stories we want to share in our lives, so we can spread the principles and the values we believe in. This is also called the message.

So, what’s your favorite story? Let us know about it in the comments

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Mistake__by_01000100

Read the pilot episode here
Read episode 2 here
Read episode 3 here

Cecilia and I share an unexpected kind of relationship. Unexpected because by any other standard, she and I would not be friends at all. It was because I met her when we both signed up for a self-awareness training about 4 years ago and we ended up being in the same class.

At first I didn’t pay any attention to her at all, and we spent the entire course practically out of each others concern. It wasn’t until the end of the course when she came up to me and gave her token of appreciation for what I did for the entire class. I didn’t say anything in return, and we didn’t talk to each other again for two years.

After we returned in touch, only then did I notice the authenticity of Cecilia’s character. I knew she didn’t realize it herself, but I saw she could become a very good person indeed. Since then, I’ve been trying to persuade her to see what I see, and in every chance I get I try to engage her character and help her grow to become the strong, independent, intelligent, and caring young woman inside – including this meeting we were having.

Because I have this “mission” with her, but can only meet her once or twice a year, I take every opportunity as something valuable that needs to be properly used. Cecilia usually needs some idle chit-chat to get the conversation engine going, but after that we can head straight to the serious matters. Today, I think we were making good progress, until we were interrupted by one phone call.

Cecilia picked up her green floral pattern Blackberry while saying, “Someone’s angry”. I had a question mark expression on my face as she excused herself and talked on the phone. I didn’t notice it at first, but after several minutes I could tell it was her fiance on the other end. I knew they were talking about something serious, but I didn’t catch that they were talking about me.

After she closed the phone, I asked Cecilia about some parts of the conversation I overheard and tried to put together in my head. It seems Cecilia’s fiance didn’t like the idea about the two of us meeting. Cecilia argued with her fiance that he didn’t know me well, and I couldn’t be of any threat or do anything out of manner with her (since I’m a nice guy after all). However, none of her arguments helped, and we had to end the session short because neither of us was in the mood any longer.

The problem is a simple matter of integrity

This experience reminded me of a similar one that happened about a year ago, when I was meeting up with my friends from high school – and consequently my ex-girlfriend with whom I had broken up three years prior. She had a boyfriend at the time, and like Cecilia, she received a phone call from him as we were having dinner. After a few minutes of conversation, she excused herself to the restroom – while still carrying her cellphone – and came back with an exhausted expression on her face. She told me later that her boyfriend was angry she was spending time with me, even with our other friends along.

The problem I see with both cases, is a simple matter of integrity. I’m not boasting this off, but it is true that both of these men feel threatened by me because I have better integrity than them. In the case of the ex, she had already been dating her boyfriend before we broke up, making their relationship based on a foundation of distrust. In the case of Cecilia, I am one of the few men (if not only) whose “mission” is to help her become a better person; which has caused me to do a number of extraordinary things for her.

The other problem I notice with these two cases, is they are undoable mistakes; it needs not to happen at all in the first place, for it to be alright. When we face our problems without integrity, knowing that it will expose a hole in our character or relationship, of course we feel threatened. The fear comes mostly not from being worried the relationship might fail, but because it will reveal our weaknesses that we’ve denied and tried to conceal all along.

The armor of jealousy

I consider myself fortunate to have been aware of the importance of integrity since early on in life. Integrity is one of those things that you need to get perfect from the beginning – there are only a few mistakes you can afford, and they are very hard to erase once you have made them. Even if you can forgive and make peace with yourself, the memory of the mistake still has the opportunity to haunt you and rear it’s ugly non-dead face at some future moment in your life.

Cecilia’s “mistake” is considered as a mistake by her fiance because he can’t see the bigger picture. He only focused on it being a mistake, instead of what value can be created from the experience. Because he can’t see the bigger picture (since he has not the sensitivity or insight), he focused only on the minor dynamics. And when you focus on the minor, any little hiccup can cause you aggravation and anxiety.

Both of these relationships are without a strong foundation of integrity. Love is not about keeping keeps, but about pure and solid trust in the growth of both characters; Love can not be hurt by the simple act of infidelity (as I experienced, but did not destroy me and only made me stronger). If we feel threatened and think our relationship is in jeopardy, it means we have no integrity, and therefore nothing solid to protect us except the armor of jealousy and the childish behavior we keep as our weapon.

Love cannot be without integrity; there are too many challenges inherent in it to face only with naivete romance. Feeling like you speak the same language is not strong enough either. Love needs to be based on a solid principle, one which transcends all our mortal desires.

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[1] Photograph by ~01000100

I’m writing this at 3.30 A.M on a Friday morning after coming home from the studio about an hour ago. It’s been like this for two nights in a row now – it doesn’t happen every night but it does happen occasionally. When it does, I realize some things concerning having a semi-day job that I wasn’t aware of when I was mostly a freelance music teacher.

timepiece prime time clock closeup watch by zoutedrop

One of those things is how the value of time is not equal for all parts of the day. Most of us who have day jobs barter our time in exchange for income, and mostly that income is a flat sum that’s not related to the qualitative value of time; only the quantitative value of it. We are paid to work 8 hours a day (assuming a 9 to 5 responsibility) and over time when we have to work extra (but limited to a maximum of 3 hours over time, as some offices do here in Jakarta).

For me though, there is no overtime. True, I start in the studio most days around 1 or 2 P.M, and since it’s a highly client-based business, the time I finish could range from 6 P.M to 2 P.M like today. And when I work into the midnight shift, I keep thinking that my time should be worth more if I have to work at midnight then when I work in the afternoon.

Depending on what we do when, we create a different amount of value

Charlie Gilkey creates a Productivity Heatmap; the idea in the chart is that we map out our creative hours during the day in order to take full advantage of it. Because, let’s admit it, even geniuses aren’t geniuses most of the time; there are specific times of day when the genius has a higher probability of striking us. The Productivity Heatmap aims to help us identify our creative moments and learn which hours are more precious and which ones are more free to use for administrative matters.

I like to think about the difference of the qualitative value of time this way: suppose you and a friend from the office are leaving the office, yet your friend can leave at 3 P.M, while you can only leave at 5 P.M after finishing some extra paperwork. The difference doesn’t feel significant, right? But, if we change that and say your friend can leave at 8 P.M, while you can only leave at 10 P.M, would you still have the same response? I think that 2 hours difference in the afternoon is more forgivable than 2 hours difference into the night (in fact, the 2 hours difference in the afternoon might feel more about 45 minutes, while the 2 hours difference in the night feels about 3 and a half hours).

The value of time is different for us; depending on what we do when, we create a different amount of value. Yet, most day jobs only reward us on a lump-sum basis; like manufactured products coming out an assembly line that are considered to have low individual values to justify a uniform compensation system. 2 hours on a Friday evening may be considered time to relax for most office workers, but for a musician it could mean time to go out and perform on stage and build relationships with new fans to grow his business.

Grace has a lot to do with how we live our time-styles

This is a challenge for me as I try to determine what’s worth doing and what’s not worth doing with my time. Because even though I’m still working within the music industry – which is my passion – I sometimes still feel under-appreciated and under-compensated; that I can achieve more if I could concentrate more on my personal projects. Yet, these personal projects take time before they show results, and there is always another eager young person willing to fill up the spot should I want to give it up.

That’s why Grace has a lot to do with how we live our time-styles (as opposed to life-styles). How can we use our time with the most efficient output? How can we prepare in advance for moments where down time in the office could mean serious creative uptime in our personal projects – the projects that give more rewards in the long run?

As a creative person, it’s our prerogative to determine which is worth doing more – yet the huge rock that makes many an aspiring artist stumble and fall is the obligation to put food on the table. We can all understand that, and surely we can all sympathize with that; but we should still have the mentality and the dream that one day, we can support ourselves and our family from the income we receive as direct results from transactions of our own art that we create in our own time and place. Surely I hope this isn’t just the romanticism, idealism, or naivete of an artist, but a tangible, real condition we can all strive to reach.

Can you fellow artists confirm this?

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*Photograph by zoutedrop