For the past eight years, I have read between 20 and 30 books annually, a total of nearly 200 books. It’s been a good mix of fiction and poetry, biography and memoir, and lots of other non-fiction (including textbooks, self-development, and history).

I’ve always enjoyed reading, but my consistency stems from a belief that I very luckily stumbled across as a young man.

At the time, I looked around and saw so much suffering: my family, my friends, people on the streets and on the news, and of course, myself. We were all suffering in one way or another (or several others!).

And I thought to myself: “Some people I know are suffering and terribly unhappy. Other people I see are gracious, loving, and inspiring just to be around. What makes the difference? Humans have been around for thousands of years. Surely someone, somewhere has learned the Secrets of Life and written them down: how to live without suffering; how to live virtuously and honestly; how to be successful, wealthy, and respected; how to be happy, fulfilled, and beloved by other honorable people; how to a be a Light for others.”

Ever since then, I have pursued wisdom - and encountered it - everywhere. At first, it was in books, but I’ve found great wisdom in people, in their words, their stories, their deeds.

Thinking back, I realize what a grand journey my life has been because of this pursuit, ignited by the belief that there is wisdom to be found for those that seek it. I still seek wisdom, but it’s from a much more peaceful, aware, accepting - and yes, accomplished - place.

Talk about a lucky break.

I have a handwritten note. It reads:

You have time in your life for anything you want. What are you choosing to spend it on?

It’s good to check in with yourself from time to time.

Some people talk about achieving success or Nirvana or Enlightenment.

For a couple of years now, my fiancée and I have been talking about “achieving Dog” - being in a position to adopt a canine friend, probably an older one who needs us as much as we need him.

Today, though I’m 2,000 miles from home, C went down to a local shelter and brought home Chase, a happy (read: sorta fat) black Lab, about seven years old, and whose owner recently had to give him up for adoption.

Today, my heart is happy and full, and I can’t wait to get home to my Lady and our new Old Man.

Today, we achieved Dog.

Krishnamurti once said: “The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again.”

The experience - the concrete, individual, unique presence of that particular bird - will be replaced by a concept.

Think of the last time you saw a pigeon. Did you take any notice of its size, shape, color, or behavior? Was it actually gray? Perhaps tinged with brown? Possibly three or four different shades of both?

You don’t remember. Your mind labeled it “Pigeon,” and your experience of perceiving that bird was replaced by your idea of a generic pigeon.

This is what it is to lack Awareness: your experience is replaced by a concept, a label which carries connotations, preconceptions, expectations.

And it doesn’t just happen with birds. We use all kinds of labels in our lives: woman, teacher, cashier, taxi driver, Mom, Brother, Spouse.

Even when our labels are positive, special, even intimate, they obscure the moment-to-moment reality of whatever has been named. Instead of being alive to the vibrant, ever-shifting Life before us, we are caught up in our mind, surrounded by our ideas of what’s around us, never really seeing what’s actually there.

How’s that for a concept?

Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of trusting that Time is the boss when making music, and about focusing on serving your musical intent, regardless of missed notes.

Today, I found myself doubting, uncertain, and consequently, timid, while playing for a new batch of students in their vocal coachings.

Now, to be fair, I wasn’t berating myself the way I did yesterday. Instead of being short-tempered, I was merely cowed into giving less than I could have.

When I listened back to the tapes, I discovered that, thankfully, the groove was still there.

But sadly, many of my musical intentions went unserved. My dreams of nuanced and emotionally evocative playing went unfulfilled - because I was scared.

This is only slightly better than getting angry with myself while playing. If I get angry, then I’m: 1) Being judgmental of my playing, and 2) Adding distracting negativity.

When I’m playing scared, then I’m only being self-conscious. I’m not adding anything to my playing- but that’s not much better.

Instead of settling for playing the right notes at the right time, I could add conviction. I could add a sense of daring - of being uncertain if my hands or musical ideas will hit their mark, but having the courage to try it see. I could add drama and flair. In fact, I should be doing this - when the music calls for it.

But when you’re self-conscious, you play timid. You play the right notes, you even keep the groove going - but you’re settling.

“I played all the right notes at the right time! What’s the matter with that?”

Literally, playing it safe. If you never miss a note and your Time is solid, no one can accuse you of being “wrong” - but no one will accuse you of touching their heart or moving their soul, either.

Music is not about being “right” or “wrong”. Music is a chance for one soul to reach out and touch others, and to know, at last, that it is not alone.

Scared music don’t make no Music.

On Tuesdays, I get to play for about a dozen students in their vocal coaching classes. Most of the day went really well, but during the second session of three, I was feeling pretty bummed out.

I was playing some fairly fast and difficult songs and -

Well, yes, of course I practiced! A little bit, at least. I’m not always a bad student… *cough*

Now, as I was saying…

I was playing some hard rep and felt like I wasn’t really doing so hot.

As I was reading the page, playing the music, and listening to the singers, I was also berating myself.

“Nope, not groovy. Come on, keep time!”

“Seriously? Didn’t we practice that specifically so this wouldn’t happen?”

“Why’d you mess that up? You never mess that up!”

All in my head, of course. But very distracting, nonetheless!

So I wasn’t particularly looking forward to reviewing the recordings tonight. (I always record and listen back my collaborations with singers: it helps me connect what I feel and hear in the moment with how things actually sound to an outside listener.)

So I queued up the recordings and sat back to listen. (Isn’t '“queue” a funny word?)

And imagine my surprise (and delight!) when I discovered that all the mistakes - things that had seemed so horrific as I was playing - barely registered on the recordings.

Sure, I knew that there was a wrong note here or a missing note there: but, as a listener, the musical effects were largely still in tact. For the most part, I kept great time, and even when a note wasn’t technically “correct”, the dramatic purpose of each scale and chord was still fulfilled.

It’s a lesson that my piano teacher growing up used to recite over and over: Time is the Boss.

And it’s true. If you keep the TIME going steady and play the notes - even wrong notes - with the right CHARACTER (soft/loud, proud/scared, excited/frightened), then, by and large, your musical purpose will be served.

That’s not a free pass to play wrong notes willy-nilly. But it means that, instead of berating ourselves while making our art (like I did), we can focus on the bigger picture: the Story we’re trying to tell with our partner, the Singer.

So! Stay steady, give the very best of yourself, and then…enjoy the ride and let the Boss take care of business.

“Those who know, do not say; and those who say, do not know.”

I’ve been a working a musician since I was 12 years old, and I’ve never had a job that didn’t involve either making music or helping other people make music.

So it’s no surprise that I get funny looks when people find out I was an Anthropology major in college.

Typically, people respond with something like, “Oh, wow! Anthropology, how cool! But uhm…what is anthropology?”

I’ve never been able to come up with an answer that felt right. I would give the standard definition, “It’s the study of humanity,” which is technically true. But it doesn’t capture what fascinated me about the subject - what still fascinates me.

Perhaps anthropology is best explained by throwing a bunch of anthropology jargon at you. A good anthropologist: uses holism as a lens for understanding; is trained in ethical ethnography; uses mixed-methods research in cross-disciplinary analyses to understand who, what, where, when, how, and (potentially) why.

On second thought, maybe that isn’t the best way to explain it. (Don’t worry, we’ll explore what all those words mean later).

Today, as I was reading a book about spirituality, I stumbled across a better answer to the question, “What is anthropology?”

For me, studying anthropology is about learning awareness. Anthropology is not about learning a specific set of related facts or figures; it’s about learning to understand.

Let’s pretend for a second that we want to understand a particular group of people. We could pick all kinds of groups based on location, time, social role, all sorts of demographics: “Roman soldiers in 125 AD”; "NYC Taxi Drivers”; even “CEOs of Silicon Valley Startups”. For now, though, let’s decide we want to understand “People Who Live in Las Vegas in 2019”. This is too broad a group of people for an actual study, but it sounds fun for our hypothetical research.

One of the easiest ways we can begin to understand “People who live in Las Vegas in 2019” is simply to go to there and directly observe people going about their day, taking notes all the while (one of the most simple methods of ethnography, or the study of a particular cultural group) .

Some people might be doing things we don’t understand - walking into certain buildings, avoiding certain parts of town, only visiting some places on certain days.

If we can’t find out just by observation, we can do a few other things, including asking the people directly (interview, another ethnographic method) or by moving to Las Vegas ourselves and experiencing firsthand why someone might go one place and avoid another (participant observation, another method).

We could also incorporate public records into our quest for understanding: census data such as population, income, family composition, and marital status. Surely these elements would help us better understand “Who Lives in Las Vegas”.

The combination of qualitative data (why and how people do certain things) combined with quantitative data (how many of people are doing those things, and/or how often) is an example of mixed-methods research.

By combining quantitative data with the qualitative data we collected through ethnographic methods, we know a lot more about people living in Las Vegas than when we started.

Interestingly, all of the things we’ve discussed so far fall under the umbrella of Cultural Anthropology, one of the study’s four sub-disciplines.

But the great thing about anthropology is that, in seeking awareness, we can always seek further.

If you really wanted get inside the heads of Las Vegans, wouldn’t it be useful to study how they speak to each other (the slang, the accent(s), the ways people of different social status interact)?

Or how about looking at the history and origins of culture in Las Vegas? E.g., does the old Mormon Fort downtown have anything to do with the culture today? Could we learn anything about Las Vegans by examining the physical elements of the city, like its architecture or even the trash heaps?)

And while we’re at it, if we want to understand the people in Las Vegas, wouldn’t it be useful to understand people in general? As in, what can we expect from people based on human physical mechanics, genetic tendencies, and psychological and social patterns?

All of these questions fall into the other sub-disciplines: Linguistic Anthropology, Archaeology, and Biological Anthropology. If we take what we learned from each of these, together with what we learned from Cultural Anthropology, we now have a framework for an incredibly holistic understanding of “People Who Live in Las Vegas in 2019”. That is, we would understand a lot about Who lives there, What they do, Where they do it, When they do it, and How they do it, and we would be the most qualified to guess Why they do it.

A historian, a biologist, and a psychologist could each look at the question, “Who lives in Las Vegas in 2019?” and give a deep and thorough answer, but it would likely be limited by the conventions of their respective disciplines. Additionally, these three professionals may bring judgements, misinterpretations, or other misunderstandings to their analyses. The anthropologist is just as likely to judge - but she’s also trained to suspend these judgements and seek to understand a group of people using their own internal cultural logic.

To me, the magic of anthropology is this explicit search for holism, a more complete and informed understanding of the elements that make up and affect human nature as understood by the people who are being studied. Rather than judging other people by fixed universal standards, the anthropologist seeks to understand them on their own terms, taking into consideration her other relevant research and knowledge.

And what is all that holistic knowledge, if not Awareness?