"Who are you to tell me how to live?"

As I was driving in my car today, I was listening to a radio interview with the philosopher Alain de Botton that caused me to linger a moment in my car and ponder before going in to work.

De botton was discussing his new book, which urges non-believers to embrace some of the positive aspects of religion. Himself a committed atheist, de Botton was arguing for the secular world to be bold enough to teach and guide people to live better lives. All of us -whether we believe in the supernatural or not- need guidance to live the best life possible.
 
Speaking of our obsession with individual freedom, de Botton says "freedom basically means I want to be left alone and no one should guide me, no one should teach me anything. I am an adult, and being an adult means not listening to anyone else about the art of living." As traditional moral institutions crumble, we are constantly asking anyone with any advice at all for us, "who are you to tell me how to live."

Obviously, these traditional institutions have often abused their persuasive powers and earned our distrust. We are now left with not only a reluctance to follow on moral matters, but a reluctance to lead as well.

As de Botton put it: "Some of the people with the best ideas will retreat and say, 'well, it's not for me to influence anyone.'" When artists and intellectuals have abdicated their responsibility to use their wisdom and insight to influence others to be better, the voices of our consumer culture are ready to fill in the void.

This problem is one that Michael and I have often discussed. As lovers of art, music, and literature we feel deeply the absence of voices advocating for a better way of life. As musicians, we feel an urgency to offer an alternative to the pervasive nihilism of popular culture in a way that is meaningful to both believers and non-believers alike.

In doing this, we don't wish to be preachy. We aren't trying to persuade anyone to accept things they don't already believe in. But as de Botton put it, we all need to be reminded from time to time to act on those things that we already believe to be right.

-Danny

If you'd like to hear the entire interview with Alain de Botton on Radiowest, follow this link
http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/religion-atheists

Something beyond... Remembering a Great Writer

In a previous post, I shared with readers the profound effect Spanish and Latin American literature has had in my life. I was saddened to learn of the recent passing of the great Mexican writer, Carlos Fuentes. While reading his obituary, I came across the text of his final tweet and felt it was worth posting here. It may seem a grave injustice that such a prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays, theatre, and cinema would be honored here by a tweet. But once you read it I think you'll understand why:

"Debe haber algo más allá de la masacre y la barbarie, para sustentar la existencia del género humano y todos debemos participar en su busca."

"There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it."

May we all have the courage and strength to continue the search.

-Danny

Stepping Stones through the Underbrush

Many of our dear friends and family that have listened to our song Upwards, beyond the Onstreaming have found some of the lyrics unsettling. Admittedly there are elements of the song that are a little uncomfortable, and they are there by design. Asking really difficult questions of ourselves is not a comfortable exercise, but it is one that is crucial for personal growth. The greatest art, literature, and music can force us to confront these darker aspects of human nature while still urging us to seek the light. Perhaps no one did this better than Dostoevsky, whose work has influenced both of us greatly.

If you have not yet heard the song in it's entirety, we invite you to give it a few very careful listens. If you have listened to the song already and felt uncomfortable, we invite you to listen again and to read the listening notes provided below. We hope that our own thoughts on the song will help provide stepping stones through the underbrush of dark and dangerous emotions and eventually lead you to the real message of the song: "Love as you would be loved."

Listening notes

"The title from this song is taken from the short story, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges. Although the song has little to do with the esoteric ideas of Borges, I feel that the title describes beautifully the surreal and distant place that the guitar takes me when I play the song. A place where it is safe to be ourselves.

In my interpretation of the song, that distant place is not real. The darker moments of the song even question if it's possible to continue dreaming of such a place. Michael's interpretation of the song and his added composition infuse a degree of hope that such a place is real, even if it always seems just beyond our grasp."

-Danny

"To sing this song I imagine I am someone else. The words grow my empathy for others. They are not my words. The words awaken me to other’s stories. They grow my appreciation for the individual challenges we each face and further my respect for the human experience. The words remind me to love."

-Michael

lyrics

Contributing works

-Borges, Jorge Luis. "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." Ficciones.

-Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment.

-de Unamuno, Miguel. Abel Sanchez: Historia de una pasion. 

-"The Rhetorics of Religious Violence." Radiowest. KUER, Salt Lake City. 15 February 2007. Radio
C59YM7963346

300,000 Tons of Plastic Shopping Bags: Thoughts on resolution

Three years ago I made a firm resolve to stop accepting plastic shopping bags at the grocery store.  Americans send over 1 billion plastic grocery bags to landfills each year, adding 300,000 tons of unnecessary landfill waste. I find this fact both disgusting and striking: - striking because reusable shopping bags are such a viable solution.  The average American throws away 4.5 pounds of trash each day. I believe that we need to identify the most accessible solutions to cut back on waste creation and plastic shopping bag reduction is clearly a low hanging fruit.

I bring all this up to give context to a phenomenon.  It took me nearly a year after I made this resolution to actually stop accepting plastic grocery bags. One year! Why does it take us so long to change our behavior?  My wife and I now always keep reusable bags in the trunk of our car.  Why did it take me a year to get in the habit of storing reusable bags in my trunk?!

The song Words Leave Out The Rest was born out of the desire to actualize resolve.  To be who we know we are and who we know we should be.  To walk the walk. To follow our sense of right.

-Michael

Ivory Towers Need Ladders

When I think about all of the most important pursuits of my life (of which making music with Songs Become Water is definitely one) I find that they have been driven by two main impulses: the desire to ponder and analyze the great challenges of life (I'll call it the thinker impulse), and the desire to do something about them (the doer impulse).

I think that both of the impulses exist in us all. I imagine that for most people one impulse is more dominant than another. For me, pursuits that allow me to use both of those impulses equally are typically the most satisfying.

It was the thinker impulse that led me to pursue a degree in Spanish Language and Literature. I loved the exercise of analyzing, criticizing, and deconstructing texts and using them to debate the big existential questions. At one point, I had strongly considered getting a Ph.D in Spanish Literature.

However, many of the most powerful texts I studied were so harrowing that I decided eventually not to pursue a career in academia. It became clear to me that social and economic injustice were more than abstract literary themes. While the characters in those stories weren't real, their experiences were and those experiences were being lived by people who were suffering. Eventually, the doer impulse forced me to climb down from the ivory tower.

I now work for a nonprofit agency that provides programs to help people out of poverty. I love the work I do. I am now satisfying the doer impulse. But I can't (nor should I) prevent the thinker impulse from creeping in. It prompts me to ask important questions about the effectiveness of the work I'm doing. It invites me every so often to climb back atop the ivory tower to get a clearer view.

-Danny

What is "Words Leave Out The Rest" all about?

Please listen to the song and read a few of our impressions from the song.

"I began writing this song late one evening in November. I penned the words before i picked up the guitar and wrote the tune. For me the song explores a distinct angst that had been growing for over a year. I had a feeling that I wasn't working hard enough toward my goals and that I lacked the courage to aspire to the things I really wanted out of life.  That November evening Words Leave out the Rest became a plea to both myself and a dear friend to summon the courage and commitment to make the sacrifices necessary to follow our sense of right."

-Michael

"This song reminds me that there is nothing necessarily valiant or virtuous about living the way others expect you to live. Too many of us ignore our sense of right and 'let our fear and busyness be our god.'"

-Danny

Words Leave Out The Rest

lyrics

I think that we are getting closer - closer to each other and further from our goal

And it seems when ever we get closer that something tries to stop us and we fail

But I believe that you've got something special - together we've got something and I feel the world would benefit from us

And I want to sew our dreams and time into a quilt and drape it over us as we sit by the fire of our hope

And we'll talk of all the beauty that we feel from the world and lament the fact that our words leave out the rest

It frightens me that though we feel a calling we let our fear and busyness be our god

But I believe that what is scaring me is that this is just iconic of what is happening in the world

Is this song a warning? A prophecy? A wake up call? Some jumbled words? A battle cry? A desperate plea for help?

Maybe the kindling of our hope?

And I want to sew our dreams and time into a book and turn its pages as we sit by the fire of our growth

And we'll sing of all the beauty that we feel in the world and lament the fact that our words leave out the rest

Songs Become Water is on iTunes!

Hypnopompy our first album just hit iTunes today! Please download the album and give it a few critical listens!

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