Lunch with Jimi

Yo yo yo!

A question that pops up in conversations I have is: "What's your passion?"

For some, it's music. Others, it's selling cars. The neighbor might find life's answers in his orchid collection, and your aunt might have followed a call to God at age 15. For many, the answer to this question is not clear, and the source of much deliberation and oftentimes, frustration. I often wonder if music is "what I'm meant to do." I love playing to the crowd, but I'm not big on winding up mic cables.

A buddy once defined the question as such:

If God came down, and she told you that if you keep playing guitar, everyone would cast you out, and you'd die penniless and alone...A true passion is if you keep playing.

Now, that always elicits a "Faceman" response from me (see "The A Team" for reference.)
"I don't know, Hannibal.......There's a lot of mic cables to wind!"

At lunch the other day with some friends, the subject came up. Most folks don't know what theirs is, myself included. I would venture to say "music," but I falter for the reason that there might be something out there that's more to me.

Here's something that popped out of my mouth:

For me, music is meaningful when I connect to "the source." I'm not exactly sure what this is, but it takes on a life of it's own. My music is a vehicle for that connection, a channel for that source. But other folks find it in different places. A pilot may remark they feel "most alive" when pushing an F-16 through it's stuff. A hospice worker finds deepest meaning in helping the dying. Perhaps it's the same thing.

So, if the source is "God", which I hesitate to use, but it makes it easier, it's like we're having lunch with God. That's what we're all after. A pilot will fly to lunch, and his plane is the vehicle. A race car driver will drive to lunch. I'll take my tour bus. Different vehicles and modes of transportation to lunch, but we're all after the same thing - A lunch date with the almighty (I think his name is Jimi! Ha!)

Here's the disclaimers: I'm not a religious person at all. If I identified with any organized religion, which I do not, I would probably fall under the Buddhist umbrella. I hesitate to use the term God in this context, and in this blog, but I think it's the most accurate and easily understood term for our illustrative purposes.


But on the subject of passion, perhaps each discipline is really just another path up the same mountain. So don't practice to play fast - practice to connect! Bad technique gets in the way, and slows you down on the way to lunch.

As Jimi would say in Voodoo Chile, "Don't be late!"

Rock on!