I have had a bit of a dry spell for writing songs for the last few weeks.  I have been very busy and haven’t had that much alone time.  For me writing is a private process for the most part, but I was finally left alone for a while the other day and it all came rushing in.  This is kind of a round about way of saying that I have a new song, and not just a new song but one that I really like.

The basic idea that has been rolling around in my head the past few weeks is how people limit themselves, and what thoughts and ideas they use to do that.  I think that fear is our biggest counter-motivator, and it sticks its ugly head up in so many different ways.  One of the biggest hindrances to mankind is rising above this “holding on to fear” mentality that we are programmed with.  It makes sense that we as human beings should feel fear and retain a healthy respect for it.  If you are going to physically survive you need to have knowledge of that which can kill you, and because of that our brains are wired that way just like every other animal.   The problems start to occur when the real lions and tigers and bears ending your life are replaced with concepts of future pain based on current actions or non-actions.  Our brains use the same wiring that tells us to stay away from sharks to tell us to avoid letting our hearts be open to those around us.  Our mind doesn’t differentiate between physical and emotional pain when it tells us to be afraid.  That is to say that we become as emotionally skittish as our ancestors were mortally skittish on the plains in Africa a million years ago.  That fear is what weighs us down and keeps us from reaching our potential (which I believe is limitless).

One of the fears that consumes many of us is our fear of a vengeful God and of the unknown that that God represents.  This new song deals with that a bit.  I was aiming to point out that the weights that we see as holding us down are of our own creation and that we can and must rise above them.  Winston Churchill said “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”  It’s as true today as the day he said it.  When we stop fearing the things that won’t kill us we are freed to live a weightless, constantly expanding existence.  I will post the new song when I get it finalized.

I am currently sitting in a bar in Raleigh getting ready for my last set. It’s empty here. Well not technicaly, there are three people sitting here watching me tapping on my phone and eating. It’s an empty night that used to leave me feeling hollow, but there has been a change.

Tonight I feel freed to do whatever I want. I have been playing all kinds of old and new original music tonight, the stuff that you can’t pull off in a crowded loud bar. It’s strange feeling contented to play to no one. This emptyness used to be something that I would dread, but now it seems oddly freeing.