Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining me once again for episode #2 of the podcast "An Optimist Path through Cynicism". And The Optimist Path through Cynicism is the name that I chose mainly for my personal memoir, because I learned a long time ago that by telling our stories, we actually heal ourselves and others, and it was that ability to be able to connect with others with our own story that kind of got this project off the ground. Last week, I talked about Peace IS Possible with my guest Machai St. Rain. And this week, I am going to show you a couple excerpts from the walks that I was doing this summer in South-Central Colorado at the studios of MIDI Age Productions. And I'm going to be showing that video and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to introduce and talk a little bit about chapter number two in today's podcast. And this podcast today is called "The Three Pillars of Optimism". And for me, those those three steps, those three pillars are basically Mind, Body, and spirit, which are all things that relate to myself. The second pillar that I consider being curiosity and creativity, and that creativity is my way of connecting with whatever I can conceive of Source. Alright, so that relates to spirituality.
So in chapter two, I'm actually doing a replay an excerpt from my first album release party here, which I did back in October. And in college, I always aspired to do a multimedia stage show with an inspirational message, something that was immersive that brought people together. And in October, I released my first album called flow states journey. Now, it's not my first album, but it's the first time that I officially released, and you can look for that on your favorite streaming sites.
And then in the third chapter of today's podcast, the third pillar, I consider compassion and community. So by telling our stories, we heal ourselves and others. And then that's this first segment that I'm going to play for you. These are walks that I did in basically brainstormed, and for me, part of my creative process was basically dumping my brain live on camera, okay, and I'm doing a lot of that we're going to do some of that tonight. And then it was an interesting process by going through 10 hours of material that I recorded to make these excerpts that I am now doing as part of this podcast, and really defining what that message is for me. And I'm realizing that the first season of this podcast series is, is really going to be about telling my story. But the reason that I'm doing this live and inviting people to come join me is because my story and your story is not necessarily that far apart and being able to connect with people is that third pillar, right?
So in this video, I introduced my juggling, which I discovered juggling when I was about 18, about the same time that I discovered the Renaissance Festival. And that has been a vehicle for me again, for my my optimism, my creativity, my ability to connect with myself to create, to connect with source, and to be able to connect with other people. So it's been a centralized theme in all three of these pillars for me.
All right, so here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, another excerpt from my walks in south central Colorado at the studios of MIDI age productions.
There is a lesson I have learned, that has taken me to the edge of a spirit world of some kind, and I am now needing to come back and do what I can to be a positive influence in the world, and in my own life. And in so doing, find my own happiness, find my own purpose, and learn to forgive myself for being less than I conceive people can be and should be, and all of those things that have held me and held us down.
And I want to reflect so much more on the positive of all of this and the wonder and splendor of creation. And how this connects us all. Because the message that I learned, the thing that I take back from 20 years living on the edge of the San Luis Valley is that we cannot isolate ourselves. Yes, we can physically remove ourselves, and I could go another 10, 20 miles into those mountains and become a real hermit, and it wouldn't matter because I would still be depending on other people. Unless I was out there truly hunting my own food, and avoiding everybody at all cost, a true hermit may be disconnected from everybody else, but probably not because even then they're probably coming into town and getting supplies and buying things like solar panels, you know, having a few minor conveniences, like power.
And if you've looked for anyone else down the road to help you out, then we're connected. And even then, even when you are totally alone in the middle of the woods out there, you are still connected, because the world is a changing place and getting smaller, and we affect people in very remote places all the time. And it's becoming harder and harder. And if nuclear war breaks out, or climate really does change to the point that it becomes virtually impossible to live out there as a hermit in the mountains. Well... Well, then, and we're all doomed. Right? We're all doomed and right. We are just doomed. But...
All right, sure, it may be a little optimistic for me to say something like this, but remember my background; I played this character, this stage character as a professional juggler, Sebastian The Juggling Jester, and I've taken that character, and I've put him into this whole fictional world, what I like to call historical fiction, but the history being my own memoir.
So An Optimist Path through Cynicism is actually based on my memoir, but The Wizard's Fool might have elements of my memoir in it. But it's more to express a world where I can share my values, my feelings, and create situations based on what point I want to try to make, what morality play I'm putting out into the world about how we can actually, and need to be optimistic through a whole lot of cynicism and not just bury the fact that we are cynical! I'm cynical, and I can really only tell you my story, because by telling our own stories, we heal ourselves and others. And "the and others" part, I believe, is because there are so many people who relate with our story. I mean, there really is, I mean, not everybody but the people who do relate with our story. And we learn more about the differences of people we can relate with, we're less likely to put them into a stereotype, put them into the category of "they". And I think ultimately, that's what I'm trying to do. This is a creative community that everybody can be a part of, and not be considered part of the "they". And the juggling, and the juggling for mind body connection, and the whole connection and the story, this all leads into The Wizard's Fool, which is the stage show I want to put together as a musician, telling the story of The Juggling Jester and The Wizard's Fool. And Edward, another character that comes in to play a critical role, and about a fractured spirit and a fractured community and of bringing people together. And so Juggling for Mind/Body connection is just a stepping stone into the adventure of the story of a... of an inspirational story, a story that can bring us together that can use juggling as a way of sharing how we can really make peace in the world, and we do this in a full multimedia, immersive stage show artistic experience. And we change the world!
Developing this character at the Renaissance Festival, Sebastian The Juggling Jester, just allowed me to really think a lot about what the ideal character, the ideal role that I could play in the world. And it's largely just looking at that Blessed Fool, that innocence spirit that walks in and people just smile and things happen for him.
And the wizard does juggling as meditation and form and movement and intention and incantation, and that's how the wizard uses juggling. And Sebastian uses juggling as the Blessed Fool. He loves juggling, he loves the reaction he gets from his juggling, he likes making people smile, and he's totally open and wants to share his juggling. Edward, now on the other hand, is a bit reclusive, very guarded. He learns juggling as a way of just coping. And so he uses juggling for meditation, he uses juggling for exercise, and he uses juggling just for his mental health!
So juggling for me is a lot more than just a sport or an art or a hobby, it's a way for me to connect with other people, and it's a way for me to really slow down and think about this connection with what my body is doing in the environment, what movement, I need to get from point A to point B, that's going to be the best for my body. So when I take a step, and I do a walking meditation, I feel the ground under my feet, I feel my legs aching a little bit from climbing up these hills a bunch. And when I'm juggling, it's a similar effect that adds to the potential input. And I think what I'm realizing here is that juggling for Mind/Body Connection is both for learning how to connect with yourself in a number of ways that movement therapy and meditation can bring to any situation, any movement therapy, any meditation, can be brought to, and bringing those together into juggling, you know.
And I think that that spirit actually represents a lot of what I understand is some of the new thought or the what used to be called New Age or without the label, it's, it's that whole power of attraction thing. And the idea that if... And the idea that if you do listen to your still point, that sense of belonging, of creation of God of prayer of awareness, is the one that I will stop on, you know. If you breathe and you become aware, meditation is largely that for me. I mean, it's there's such great potential for human beings to be happy, to be joyful, that's there. But I have felt genuine, emotional joy so rarely in my life, I have a few times, other than perhaps like moments like this. I turn around and I see what I see with my eyes, and there's no way a 2D camera can give you the grandeur of what this looks like, the scope, the scale of it. And that's just a panoramic from my little view of this universe right here, right now. And if you take this and you project it out into the stars and into space, what worlds are out there, what amazing things are happening in the universe that we can go discover. And we can go discover together, we can figure things out, we're really smart as races go, we really know how to figure things out.
And when we work together to figure things out, jeez, there's no stopping us. I mean, to the Moon, you mean, really!
The way we're gonna make this better is that we're going to have to get together one-on-one and talk to each other. And there's a number of ways to do that. And I want to do that with my music and my performing. I want to bring bring people into a larger experience of the multimedia show and this is why I want to do it as a fictional character, charature, perhaps. Yeah, I think that applies: This is using three fictional charactures of myself, of different avatars, of different parts of me that I feel like I'm pulling together to find my power in the world and to be able to bring together the fractured spirit of our world!
So juggling first started out as a way for me as a fairly shy, timid kind of guy, getting a degree in computer science to actually find community. So, one of the first communities I actually started feeling like I was a part of was the community of amateur jugglers that can bring us into a social situation where we're face to face with people at juggling clubs, where people are having more of an appreciation when they're watching jugglers. I'd love to see juggling in the Olympics. That would be wonderful. That I believe we create enough community and enough opportunity for us to learn about each other at the grassroots, at the community level. If we help each other along with our juggling, we will learn to teach each other how to juggle, and that can only be a good thing.
Less thinking and more doing is a great way to take action, knowing where you're going, knowing where you're headed, knowing what your story is, and just knowing that it's worth telling, just knowing that people are going to appreciate hearing your story, like you are probably appreciating hearing mine. And it keeps coming around to that for me, it's keeps coming around to tell him my story is how I am going to heal not just myself, but others, because others need to hear what I have to say because I have tapped into the human experience because I'm alive, and I'm human, and I'm having this experience. But I don't have to have it alone.
So juggling has been a real important part of my life. And next week, I'm looking forward to actually showing you all what that means to me, how I've used it to connect with myself and with spirit.
And in chapter two, the second pillar... This second pillar of optimism, for me, is my my creativity, and that includes my juggling. But my first passion that I discovered back in college was electronic music. And by the time I graduated from college, I knew that I wanted to take some of this social justice in action and the whole need to leave the place the world a better place than I found it, to leave every situation a better place than I found it, that this became part of the dream of the multimedia show. And at the heart of that is the message and centered around music and juggling and the message is a lot of what that The Wizard's Fool is about, and this idea of having a fractured spirit that we're trying to bring back together.
Now that concept originally came because I feel in my own soul that I feel kind of fractured, right. And so we have Sebastian, the Blessed Fool, and we have The Wizard that's kind of the mystical element, and we have Edward, which is the one who really struggles with everything, and bringing that fractured soul together. And this became metaphor for how I see our communities right now. So I'd like to introduce to you now to an excerpt of the release party that I did for this new album that came out in 2022, called Flow State Journey's.
In the video, I actually put the track that was the first song on Flow State Journey's and overlaid it with the audio that I did, so that, for this podcast, that it just made it a little bit more practical to be able to do it that way. There are a couple places in here, this was recorded on Zoom and a couple of technical issues there's a spot or two where the audio will drop out and I use an alternative audio, so just be aware of that. And this has been a real journey for me to get my music out there. Now, I've done electronic music for a very long time but I've only fairly recently felt confident enough or that I was willing to go through that process of putting my message and putting my music out into the world. And this one's a little shorter. This is about six and a half minutes.
Thank you so much. I want to welcome you all here to My live album release party. And I just really appreciate everyone's support on this project and I just want to begin with a welcome and an introduction and tell you a little bit about my story.
My story is that a year ago I did not know that I was going to be releasing a whole new album of electronic music, I got into electronic music back in college, that was like over 40 years ago, I started discovering that sound. And I'm learning a lot about that and this journey has taken me down paths that are a little unexpected, like having this album. So the journey has been in college, I discovered this sound of electronic music, and it did something to the brain waves, right, and just was really gravitated towards that. And my first year in college, I discovered that the school Colorado State University have one synthesizer that they taught in one class for two weeks and the rest of the time it was sitting in a basement and not being used. And so when I discovered that they had this, I just gravitated towards it, and did a lot of jamming, and that is back where you can produce like one sound at a time on an old reel-to-reel two track, right. So reel to reel tape recorder two track, not too long into the process, I got a four track. But these days, you know, with all the digital and everything you can do a whole lot more. Fast forward to about, I'm going to say, jeez, it was before COVID, so I'm going to have to say about three years ago, a little more maybe, I met Paul here locally in town. And he was in the process of doing his big inspirational inspiration of performing his electronic music live, he covered a bunch of other stuff, but stuff from the 70s in the 80s. This is the electronic music that got me started into this. So here's this guy locally, you know, doing this concert and electronic music.
The other part of the story that got me to a whole new album that I'm releasing today is what I started learning about Insight Timer. And that has taken me through kind of a windy path here up to where I'm going to do my live after this one on Insight Timer, fighting the technology, all of that and just a whole other story that I do want to tell, but I don't want to tell today. And that's the story of being an entrepreneur and following your dreams and all of that, which leads me into the story that, for those who know me have talked about the wizards fool, and that was my first CD now. So this isn't my first CD, but it is the first CD, the one that I'm doing today, it is my first CD that I'm actually promoting. So this is a really big deal for me. And I'm really happy to have this moment for you.
So I'm to finish up the story, and then I'm gonna play the first video for you. What I discovered was is that I can play ambient music all day long. And so I was thinking of this meditation app with kind of a ready made audience, and just started jamming, and turn it on, and I am, and you'll hear me get really frustrated with the technology a lot. And that's kind of the dynamic between being a creative and, and then having to go use the left brain with that, again, a whole nother story, which we will tell at some point. But on this little guy over here, I'm able to just push a button if it's not hooked up to the computer, and just record it, but it's the final mix. So this album is largely jams that were not the MIDI tracks weren't recorded, they weren't in individual tracks, they were just live to tape. A lot of them do have a second track, I do have the ability to like listen to one track and then record over it. And I did a little bit of that. And then there are a couple tracks that are more structured and I did a little bit more than first one is a little bit more structured, but it's still jams. But it's me jamming with myself, because I'll do a track, and this is how I did it in college. This is how I did it like with with a two track recorder though, is I'll just kind of jam I'll work with the keyboard and I'll let the technology and the sound kind of take me someplace. And then I'll turn on the recorder and I'll jam. And then I might listen to a little bit, or I might not and I'll just back up, and I'll put that on, tinker with the sounds again, find another sound and then record over it. Now in college with a two track recorder, I had to take the one track, mix it with the new track and record onto the other track. With the four track I could do it in stereo and this is this stuff really needs stereo.
Fast forward to last June. And I started going through all of these jams that I did that were just meant to be, you know, basically ambient music for meditation on Insight Timer eventually. And I went through all of this and this is when I discovered oh my goodness, I've got over an hour of music that I thought was good enough, maybe with a little tweak In which I did, to put it out there. And it really represents this flow state that I was talking about, thus the name of the album Flow State Journey's, because this is the journey, this whole thing is a journey. And I am again, so glad to see you all here today to be on this journey for me. So, ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, get in the zone, and enjoy some brain candy.
That was a lot of fun for me back there in October of 2022, and was one of the more major milestones for my progression through getting into my music and learning to share that and have it be a part of what I'm doing with the greater message that optimism is worth pursuing.
Now we've had pillar one, which was basically representing mind, body and spirit for me and what that internal journey is for me, and pillar two, which has been creativity. And pillar three is now that connection with each other, what is that connection that I have without outside of myself? That connection with others, I just want to speak to that a little bit right now.
About 15 years ago, I had a life changing experience that opened up my understanding of connecting with others in a in a pretty significant way, when I sat eight days with a friend dying until she died, and it was one of the most difficult experiences and one of the most awesome growth experiences I ever had. And I'd like to share a little bit about that story, and the reason that I decided to talk about this at this point tonight, is because I have a close friend who is now going through being one of the two main support people for someone who is probably in his last few hours, right now as I record this. And it's reminded me in a large way about what's really important that when I get overwhelmed, and feeling sorry for myself, and feeling like the world really sucks. And that nobody cares about optimism. And then I get into these situations where by all accounts becomes one moment at a time, because when you're sitting with someone who you never know when their last breath is their last breath, it really opens you up to a lot of possibilities that are hard to describe.
And I think that's what brought connection in my life. As as much as anything because at the time this happened for me with my friend purple. back about 15 years ago, I was living out on the edge of the Colorado wilderness where that was recorded. And since then, where I have learned to bring connection into my life. It has been to get involved because when I left south central Colorado and I moved to Bloomington, Indiana about eight years ago, no about six years ago, sorry. And I knew that I needed to make my people connection my most important thing. And then the pandemic hit and it got really hard again. But in that process in that process of focusing on that connection, I took my experience with purple and I got involved with a program called VAIL which stands for Vigil At Life End, and it was a program that taught me how to sit with the dying and to be there for people who did not want to necessarily die alone who were at risk of doing that, and that really opened up a lot for me. So that was one of the things that one of these really hard experiences brought me into a real positive way that I could be a positive influence in life.
And another way that I got connected was by discovering this organization called Braver Angels. And I, I got it to Braver Angels because the message of learning to talk to each other one on one, and in the case of Braver Angels it's about political conversations about when we talk with each other and the polarization that's going on in the United States and how much we need to address that. And it's so much about making connections, and that has really informed me in a lot of ways about what I want to do, and about what I want to do with An Optimist Path through Cynicism and about what I want to do in this multimedia show The Wizards Fool.
And what I mainly want to do is create community, not so much for all of you, which is true, I do, but for me because that's all I can do, I can't do anything else except what I can do in my own life. And one of the things I can do is I can take the experience that I have, I can take the insights that those experiences have given me, and I can create these opportunities to come together to come together on these zoom calls to come together in this podcast and to come together in a private group that I would like to invite you to come to. So you can go to www.AnOptimistPath.com and get all the information for that.
So ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to finish up now and then open up this podcast for discussion and get your input and start building that community and ask you the question, what are the pillars of optimism for you in your life? So these three pillars that I've described in this podcast really are what has made a difference for me. And I see that all of us really need to ask that question of ourselves. What are the three things that we lean on that get us through optimism, you know, get us through the cynicism and following our optimism, following hope, following the bliss that brings us motivation to connect and to share.
And I'd like to play my final video for you, this one is really short.
Why did I end up out here? I'm ready to go out into the world. I'm ready to create the community that I know I can create. I'm ready to be part of the community that I know the people are out there to be a part of. And I'm inviting you to come and do that with me. Come into my portal, come in, let me share with you all the little bits and pieces of what I'm doing. Come help me figure out what's really relevant to do in the world, what we can do in the world, to bring peace, to bring justice to bring all of those big words that just as lost their meaning anymore. We have to do this as individuals, we have to get serious about working with each other on the ground grassroots level. And the way we do that is by creating platforms that nurture our creativity and our storytelling, and get it out there in the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the podcast An Optimist Path through Cynicism, episode two, The Three Pillars of Optimism. Next week, I will be doing Juggling for Mind/Body Connection where I will show you exactly what juggling has meant for me, how it has brought me into connection with myself, with creativity, and with community. And I'd like to thank all of you for joining me. And if you would like to sign up for notifications of these podcasts, which happens on the last Tuesday of every month, go to www.AnOptimistsPath.com. Original Music by Miles Eddy. And I would like to once again thank everybody for showing up, and go out there, do your best because that's all we can do.
Peace and love. And I love you all. So, thank you.
