MAGIC IN THE MATRIX FOR SUBSTACK WRITERS - ON MUSIC AND WRITING
Manifesting The Best Human We Can Be
THE MAGIC OF TRANSFORMING THE PERSONAL INTO THE WHOLE OF THE MATRIX
Today dialoguing with myself about how to be the best writers and human we can be. This is going to get personal - something I am loath to do in a public forum. I will do this by setting out to abstract the general from the specific, the wider application from the personal.
Because this essay reflects my own personal journey it is a bit longer than usual.
But we each have a highly personal value to bring to the table here. In essence it is only through our personal experience that we have anything to give. Some writers approach this by engaging in fiction. And some by abstracting the personal via essays and/or content creation. And some by reading and commenting.
And a vitally important part of the rhythm here of the foundations of this matrix is SubStack. We are each of us essential parts of the matrix - as inextricably linked to the whole - as any other.
But the bottom line is we cannot be successful really in being other than our true selves. Each of us as individuals is a particular reflection of the larger matrix.
By this I do not mean we must divulge our personal private lives on SubStack. Whether we disguise our personal value in fiction or essays or comments or software and engineering we are still revealing it. The task is exactly this - to be exactly who we are and say and do whatever of value we have to contribute in whatever form we are most comfortable with.
However in any final analysis we must bring ourselves to the table and lay all of our cards out if we are going to be successful. Because I think best as a musician and with musicians this is the thread I personally must follow.
What we can learn from music to apply to our writing.
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD
This is a profound statement. Words are our way of expressing our thoughts. Words come from breath. Breath from rhythm. Rhythms from our very deepest nature.
Something we don’t often think about is that words are in touch with our own rhythms. As living beings we are composed of living and nonliving molecules. Our living molecules - the stuff we call life - depends in a larger sense on nonliving molecules. The formation of living molecules from non living elements is directed by our master codes - DNA and RNA.
What the heck does this have to do with writing or music? A great deal.
What we are a part of is a vibrational world - a universe of constantly vibrating atoms and molecules. In many ways we don’t normally think about we are matter made flesh.
It is not an abstraction to understand we are creature of stardust. Not at all.
Those of you with some background in physics or biology will understand this immediately. We are composed of nonliving matter which was forged in the heart of stars long before there was an earth - long before there was life.
In a magnificent dance of which we are a part we have a master key a code of life in each of our billions of cells. This is our DNA and our RNA. we inherit this code or master key from the very first life - whenever or wherever this life first occurred.
This code is a complex, mathematical set of blue prints. This code exists in a living and nonliving web of which we are a part. And all of it - each small particle - vibrates. Built of this constantly vibrating material which composes life we can bet that our words are dependent on the end result of theses vibrational frequencies.
Words, writing depends on rhythm. Good writing - like good music - always has a good rhythm. A rhythm dependent on the vibrational frequency of each individual writer.
Here is where it gets personal. As someone who works in both music and writing I can’t help but exist on that borderland between rhythm and words.
For instance yesterday on Friday I spent the day in a studio session. This session represented the culmination of a lifetime of work. It has taken me a long lifetime to have the faintest idea of who or what I am.
I loved both music and words from the start. I spent as much time in libraries as I did participating in music. I learned through this process that I am a wordsmith and not a musician. But nevertheless it allowed me to straddle a borderland which feeds this essay.
As fate would have it I have had the privilege to know some extraordinary talented musicians. I was able to recognize them and their talent. As a consequence of this I came later in my life to work in assisting the musicians I encountered to do what they do.
But yesterday was special in a meaningful way. After spending the past four years working together on a group of songs which I knew were important they finally came together. All I or the musicians knew was that we had to keep working - piece meal and mostly in the dark - until that happened.
All we had was the belief in the music and the understanding the process was the process. The dogged day in and day out work of following a vision and of making space for it to happen. The story ranges far and wide into ripples of meaning I can’t hope to encompass in the bounds of this essay.
Someday - fate willing - I will tell this whole story. But timing is everything and the time has not yet arrived for the whole story.
But the fragment of the story I tell here - this chapter - is as follows.
As a motley crew of musicians, songwriters, producers and engineers - and of those like me who served as a kind of seamstress for the band - we knew we were onto something. We also knew there was a missing piece to this puzzle.
This piece happened to be the right drummer for this particular project. We were awaiting the missing creative spark which would set this particular blaze on fire. We have worked with many amazing drummers - those who can stay with the time demanded by certain songs and projects.
But this is a complex dance of moving pieces. It takes dedication and a willingness to make many mistakes and apply the lessons learned from these to present projects. There is no guarantee of success at all.
Suffice to say that if we truly believe in something and commit ourselves to it it will eventually come about. It may not be in the form to match exactly what we set out to accomplish - in fact it rarely turns out this way. The important thing is it does eventually manifest.
In this case through the recommendations of a brilliant young engineer the decision ultimately fell to those of us who simply see ourselves as seamstresses for the band.
Some sense was able to inform me as to the right drummer. Based on the assurances of the of the young engineer and what I saw on a website created by the drummer we seamstresses were able to make it happen.
This drummer was the missing piece - the missing creative spark needed to find to serve these songs. In time - fate willing - the music will be mixed and mastered and released so we can share them.
Until all the complex pieces fall into place none of us gets to see the final project. The wheel is still in spin and so are we.
But the moral of this long meandering story is that words and music, rhythm and frequency are inextricably linked. Any steps we can take to tap into this rhythm and frequency as writers will stand us in good stead.
We as human beings are a magic creative force.
We as creatives - those of us who stride the borderlands between our essential energy as humans and the expression of this energy in words or music or visual art are in a pivotal position to see this magic at work.
That is our role - magicians in an eternal dance - a vibrational matrix of which we are all a part. SubStack is a part of his eternal dance. An essential key to the way we all participate in these arts today.
Fate willing, we will be able to use this magic to further our understanding of this matrix within which we find ourselves.
Times are hard and I find myself getting discouraged at times by the weight of the world. But I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are making a difference. Each in our own particular way are providing the sparks which light this fire.
Love this.
"But the moral of this long meandering story is that words and music, rhythm and frequency are inextricably linked. Any steps we can take to tap into this rhythm and frequency as writers will stand us in good stead."
And our individual magic comes about through this.