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“The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them." - Parker Palmer
I sat around a campfire in zero degree temperature the other night with a bunch of folk in the blue mountains. I nearly didn’t go out. I mean... zero degrees, come on! Hell, we had snow up here the other week. And it’s been a long time since I sat around a campfire so the memory of how great it is wasn’t strong in me. And I’m up to season 2 of Big Love which is getting really interesting so I was tempted to stay on the couch. I love my couch. But it’s a dangerous place. In fact I’m in the middle of writing a new song called “My Couch, My Grave.” But that’s another story. So something in me got me out into the night. Okay, not something in me. Someone outside of me, namely my wife. In her beautiful, quietly inspiring way she suggested we go and join a bunch of people around a fire to connect and reflect. So off we went to the Katoomba Community Gardens. It was a wonderful evening. In this speedy, impatient world where fast is the new slow, and manic is the new fast, it takes something to disconnect from technology and task and entertainment. Just stop and take a breath, in the company of others. I’m not saying my mind didn’t wander back to the couch now and then. Man I am so loving Big Love Series 2, and a few times I did wonder how long I’d have to stay to be polite and appropriately soulful before I could get back to the telly. But then I remembered it wasn’t about being polite. And I was free to stay or go, and it was really just a question of what I wanted. And it struck me; these people around this fire are real. And Bill and his three wives are characters on TV, and anyway, I can watch them anytime, but campfires with real live human beings are rare. So I stayed til the end. And eventually I settled into the here and now. In the middle of the night, in winter, in zero degrees. And it reminded me, it's like Palmer Palmer says...
“The winters will drive you crazy until you learn to get out into them." |
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Brett Robin Blog - Jan 7, 2010 |
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Special Guest - Rod Rotto the Seagull
 Fresh from holiday on Rottnest Island I kick off the new year with my first ever blog. It's funny how much I've resisted sitting down to write this blog (I think it was a NYs resolution last year). You see, in 2010 I'd like to get my music reaching farther out into the world. And yet this creative calling occurs to me, alternately, as a joyful adventure and a heavy burden requiring more will and ability than surely I can muster. What tha? says Rod the gull. Why a burden? Well Rod, I guess it's good ol' "fear of failure". Which begs the question, "what is Success?"
"Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal" says Earl Nightingale and I think that's a cracker of a quote. I love the word "progressive". It gives me some breathing space. You see, I have this crazy bunch of neurons constructed into this character in my head that I'll refer to as my "inner critic" and he really loves to give me a hard time about what I haven't achieved. Now, I guess he plays his part in pushing me out of my laziness, being as he is mortified by my tendency to sit on a couch and read sci fi/fantasy books rather than say, write a blog, or organise a gig. So I'm not entirely against Mr Critic's ambition, but I am very put off by his (mostly subliminal) whispered message that whatever I achieve just isn't good enough. "So you made a couple of albums" Mr Critic says, "big deal, how many people came to your gig? Is that all?" Pesky little devil, God bless him, it's high time he just, you know, diminished.
I like Earl’s message far better than Mr. Critic's. "...progressive realization of a worthy ideal" suggests that playing music has value whether it be to 5 or 50 or 5000, and that maybe the worthiness is not only measured by the numbers but the by the spirit of putting something out to the world that might provide entertainment or consolation or a good tune to whistle along to. And yes let's also dream big and go for gold and entertain the possibility of great accomplishment, but let's not grab at it too hard with furrowed brow and useless self condemnation. Let's enjoy the journey eh?
So these are the things I've been thinking on as the New Year kicks off.
I know, I think too much. Oh, to be a seagull. But then, Seagulls can't play guitar, can they Rod?
Righto, that'll do Rod, that'll do. A closing share, my favourite song right now... Proud by Heather Small. Thing I'm most proud of... getting my songs on iTunes. Oh, and writing this blog. It's amazing how much better I feel having gotten off the couch and done it. 2010, here we go.
Bless, Brett Robin
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