Philosophy and Joe Walsh

Sometimes when I want to write the best thing I can do is still my self and listen. They say don’t go looking for love let it come to you. It could be that ideas work for me that way too. As much as I want to walk around looking for this idea or that great thought, if I put away the need to seek them out and wait patiently, I find the right ones often make their way to me.

In some ways I suppose this is a form of self-hypnosis. At the same time it feels the way they say your whole life passes in front of you. I sit in a chair slowly moving inward as if trying to fall asleep, but sleeping is not my goal—letting my subconscious know I’m not going to get in the way is what I’m trying to do.

Music is playing in my headphones, but only as white noise—the background pleasant. I sit inside the feeling of an idea being born. Soon enough a voice from the far off reaches of my mind whispers, and the words begin to tell me what they want to say. Often it comes from something I’ve been thinking about. Lately, I’ve been reading and thinking about philosophy. . . .

“ . . . Inside the silence is a symphony. Every note there is in every key. The music tells me how it wants to be. I help it write itself down. I hear the way that would sound. It’s like your favorite station, playing your favorite song just like they do on the radio . . . but the radio isn’t on.” —Joe Walsh, Got Any Gum?

I sit alone beside this golden lake and still myself with silence. I realize that I am here alone, but I cannot be lonely. Each cell, each bit, each piece of me is full with tiny memories of every person, place, or thing that has touched me since the moment I was born—or maybe even before that.

I’m thinking like a frog hears, deeply from his tiny ears into his lungs.

Suddenly I know that I have magical powers. Any time inside my mind I can refold time and space to take myself back to this inner place. I can meet and be with the colors that comfort me. I can sit among the flowers. I can talk to God and feel the angels present. I can be my innocence. I can know my mother’s laugh again, and feel my father’s strong and gentle hand.

I can hear the music that hasn’t yet been written. I can see the art of masters lost in some abyss. I can know the meaning of my very own existence, while symphonies play for me and mathematics reenacts my dreams. I just need to still myself to listen.

Yet to share this place, I had to let the words tell me what to say.

Who would think that reading philosophy and listening to Joe Walsh could have brought me here tonight?

—me strauss Letting me be