Influential Americans

Time's list of the top 20 most influential Americans.  The article provides a brief wiki-esque overview of some important people in US and world history.  Worth a read if you have a minute.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/25/the-20-most-influential-americans-of-all-time/#all

Milestone For Women's Issues In Corporate America

It has been one week since Marissa Mayer assumed the role of chief executive officer of Yahoo. Mayer - who is currently six months pregnant with her first child - has been the target of a barrage of chatter and criticism surrounding her ability to both lead a struggling company and raise a child. I personally believe that her appointment symbolizes a milestone for women's issues in corporate America. I appreciate the faith that the board of directors placed in her despite her decision to balance motherhood and career.

-Michael

Mommy Wars Rage Anew Over Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's Pregnancy

Walden Pond and a Deliberate Life

I recently visited Walden Pond for the first time and touched some of the rubble of Henry David Thoreau’s simple home.  Near the rubble stands a sign bearing a famous line from Walden “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

I have read and reflected upon this sentence during several intervals of life.  Each time I read it the words pierce through any comfortable routine I have created and push me to question what it means for me to live deliberately.  I find it hard to make out a crystal clear image of a deliberate life. 

Over the last few years I have had to make some very difficult decisions about what living deliberately means to me.  My intuition and sense has guided me a few scary steps into the dark. 

 “One cannot expect to discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

-Andre Gide

With All My Love – the final track on our recent mini-album – describes some of the heavy fears and hopes I have wrestled with as I have tried to understand myself in relationship to other people and the world. I wrote the song as the experiences of a few confusing years converged into a metaphoric chemical reaction; the result was a new song – my favorite to date – and a guiding epiphany:

Ultimately I want to have exceptional relationships with people that bring out the best in me and pursue activities and dreams that are meaningful to others and me.  Nearly everything else remains unclear.

-Michael

Discovering others

Not unlike many others, as a young college student, I was obsessed with the process of self-discovery. I was deeply influenced by stories like Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. I would wander off into the mountains for long stretches of time in and effort to “find myself.”

Lately, I am becoming interested in a more challenging, yet more rewarding process of discovery: the process of discovering others. This is not easy to do. We tend to see the people around us as merely playing a role in our own lives. Once these roles are cast, true discovery can rarely take place.

How do we overcome this tendency to cast the people in our lives into these confining roles? How do we better discover their true worth and true beauty?

The song With all my Love describes this problem and hints at a possible solution. The song describes a dream in which Michael is floating on a boat off the shore and sees hundreds of people on a beach. He desires to truly connect with these beautiful people, but finds himself drifting farther and farther away. “I tried to wave, but they didn't see me. Still, I'm not sure I was seeing them.”

In the end of the dream, the only way Michael feels he can reach across the distance and connect with these people is to share a part of himself. He knows that he won't reach everyone, but is content to touch anyone.

I have found recently that as I am willing to open up and share my true self with others, they in turn have opened up and shared amazing things with me. Through this process of trying to discover those I love, my relationships have been strengthened and I've gained new insights. We have grown together, instead of growing apart.

-Danny

Life crushes and impressionist art

I recently spent a few weeks in Western Europe with my wife and son.  We had a wonderful time.  I found insight in the Musee d’Orsay – an art museum highlighting works from the impressionist and post-impressionist eras.  I was struck by the idea that so many of the talented artists were great friends with one another and great friends with many of the thought leaders and revolutionaries of their day.  These artists drew inspiration not only from the ideas of other’s but from their relationships with people that inspired them and helped them see the world in new ways.

I think that each of us should be friends with a few people that energize and inspire us.  A friend who helps you come alive, helps you reset, helps you redirect, helps accelerate you.  I will call these friends a “life crush” for lack of a better term - someone who you platonically crush on for life. You can speak about things with your life crushes in ways that you can’t speak to anyone else because you think differently around them than you do when you’re with anyone else. Even between the years the relationship is fresh and revitalizing; even when distance and circumstance are such that you see your life crush only every several years.  I am grateful to crush on many people – both men and women – that inspire me and bring me to life.

Jumping back a paragraph… artists in the impressionist era and other areas drew inspiration from their life crushes and shared perspectives that helped them form revolutionary beliefs and ideas.

We live what we believe.

-Michael

Alternatives to mass media

Today I read a really fascinating blog on media consolidation and the lack of media choice. While none of the information presented here should be too shocking to anyone, it's worth a quick glance and some thought:

http://frugaldad.com/2011/11/22/media-consolidation-infographic/

This infographic left me thinking about how inexcusable it is in this digital era that we consumers continue to gobble up the high-fructose garbage we are fed by the mass media. I am not trying to say that commercially successful media is always bad media (though it often is). Rather, I am arguing that we can and should seek alternatives. As I write, I am acutely aware that many of the world's people are still left behind in the information age and truly have little choice as to what media (if any) they consume. But this simple exchange in which you and I are engaged -this simple, yet amazing digital exchange- is proof that at least we don't have to be passive consumers of media. We can seek out good film, literature, news, and music without sitting in our highchairs waiting to be fed. We can decide for ourselves which media are valuable and then we can choose to share with others.

Michael and I have both expressed on this blog the desire we have to offer something new and unique through our music. We now invite you to do the same. Share with us a favorite film that wasn't released by one of the major studios. Share with us a song or a band that we wouldn't hear on the radio. Share with us an important article or story that didn't catch the attention of the major news agencies. Tell us about an amazing visual artist that we might not know. Tell us where you discover new ideas and new media. Enlighten us.

You can post your thoughts as comments to this blog post or you can post on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SongsBecomeWater

The Frightening and Wonderful Process of Discovery

“Sometimes I want to see beyond all this haze; sometimes I wish I'd never cared enough to open up my eyes.”

These are the opening lyrics to Luna sin Moonlight. I wrote the words as a young college student trying to find my place in the world. They expressed a longing to return to innocence without descending further into ignorance. For years, I struggled with whether or not to record the song. I felt like the lyrics expressed a more cynical view of innocence than I would have liked them to. At the same time, I didn't feel like I could change the lyrics without discounting the real and raw emotions I was feeling when I put pen to paper.

In 2009, a couple of years after writing the song, my son Noah was born. His birth restored in me a sense of wonder and amazement in the world that had long been missing and helped me to appreciate the beauty of pure hope, pure faith, and pure innocence.

These childlike emotions are encapsulated in the music box -the child's toy- heard throughout the song. They are woven together with the very real emotions of confusion, doubt, and disbelief. In order for the song to be complete (and as part of a creative quest for honesty) all those emotions needed to occupy the same space.

As I watch my little Noah grow up, the song has begun to take on new meaning. I realize that his own beautiful state of innocence will soon pass. The frightening and wonderful process of discovery awaits him, just as it awaits us all.

Wherever you are in your own path of discovery, I invite you to read the lyrics to this song carefully. I then invite you to listen. The instruments are admittedly unconventional and it may take a few listens, but I think you'll find it worth the effort.

-Danny