December 2006

i think, perhaps, that life is something like what happens when we, physical, human representations come into contact with the spiritual, the super-natural, the divine.

like, if we are the trumpets, violins, and cellos and the Divine is the notion, the creativity, the spirit that put the notes in their rightful spots. when these forces meet, something new happens: something called music.

if i knew how to dance, like a nice two-person number that mario lopez would dance with the stars, i might compare it to that. it makes a lot of sense, the whole two working together to make a singularly beautiful action…

but i don’t know anything about dancing.

but music… yes, music makes sense to me. the notes are there, on the page, sure, but they actually don’t exists in or on the page — they’re actually somewhere else. they’re nowhere, really, until some kind of musical instrument plays them.

but when that happens, and when notes are played well, and when they are in tune, and on pitch, and played with a beautiful timbre…

well, i really don’t think there’s anything better.

for years i tried to convince myself that i only wanted to be a rockstar for benevolent reasons — you know, so i could have a broader platform to talk about jesusy things, that kind of deal. but in reality it was probably about 50% charity and about 50% greed. i know fame isn’t appealing to everyone, but damn… it sure is to me. sometimes when i helped an old lady across the street or saved a stranded kitten from a tree i probably made it to 60/40, but seriously, how often do those opportunities arise? i don’t really even know that many kittens. or old ladies.

it’s not like i don’t think i wouldn’t do good things with my imaginary fame — i’m pretty sure i would, imaginarily speaking — but for awhile in college, i think i convinced myself that i needed to have a big stage to actually be an effective human being. i kind of buy that whole concept that we’re here for a purpose, and i was pretty sure what mine was: to speak to hundreds and/or thousands of people at a time and somehow enlighten their lives with my eloquence and brilliant insight.

in a lot of ways, that hasn’t changed much. i still have some unexplicable desire to do something grand, vast, and amazing with this lifetime, and i’d still like to touch a great number of people. but i’ve slowly gained an appreciation for the intimate, for the one-on-one, and i now see that the way jesus changed the world was both by speaking to many people at once and by infusing a sense of passionate rebellion in just a dozen people, one at a time.

you don’t have to be a rockstar to change the world. you could be 1/12th of one.