Musings on Passion

My relationship with the electric guitar is this everchanging, everflowing wave.

Sometimes it’s cold. A faraway memory.

And then sometimes it’s hot. A fiery untamed passion.

My passion for the electric guitar is exactly that: untamed. It seems that to try and tame it would make it boring, monotonous, and repetitive. Apparently, I’m not willing to bring consistency, but I am willing to bring hot, wild, exciting passion.

Nearly every time I play the electric guitar, I overdo it. I play and play until my fingers, wrists, and hands are begging me to concede—as well as my neck, back, and arms, usually the next day.

But in the present moment of playing my electric guitar, I’m not thinking about hurting myself. I’m being, doing, expressing, exploring, flowing…

I’m allowing my fingers to dance across the frets and strings as my sense of self blissfully dissolves into music.

Still, every day, my gaze falls to my electric guitar. It sits there waiting for the next time I’ll take it into my arms. My eyes light up a little and a small smirk forms on my lips. Today? No, not today. Maybe tomorrow.

But those moments when my fingers come alive with a fire unlike anything else… mmm, those moments are it.

It’s that pure feeling of aliveness.

It’s a smile I can’t contain.

It’s ecstatic laughter.

It’s a thrill that can’t be described.

It’s joy so exhilarating that the only thing I can do is continue to explore this expression of sound.

It’s “YES!”

My passion for the electric guitar is hot—not hot as in a perceived external perception, but hot as in, that is literally how the energy of this passion feels. The pure essence of the energy is warm. It’s HOT! Haha.

I may not play my electric guitar consistently or steadily, but I certainly savor our moments together.

But still, I don’t play the electric guitar as often as I’d like. Physically, there’s only so much my body can do each day. I utilize my hands for a variety of things, including practicing my acoustic guitar every day. Overdoing it has a cost.

There’s only so much energy I can put into music on any given day. Right now my main focus is on practicing, polishing, and recording a couple completed acoustic songs. I’m aching to get them released in the very near future, so those songs take priority.

Like everything in life, passion has its highs and lows. But passion doesn’t just have highs and lows. Passion has so many different textures, flavors, shapes, sizes, dimensions…

My passion with my own songs ebbs and flows as well. There are peaks of pure passion, bliss, and excellence. There are moments where I bring myself to laughter, tears, or both from the depth of emotion.

There are valleys of monotony, impatience, and exhaustion. There are days when I’m just not feeling it and I do the bare minimum as far as practicing goes.

It’s all okay. The days are not “good” or “bad.” It’s all part of the process. It’s the nature of allowing the creative flow to do its thing.

I want more than anything to put these songs out into the world, because they really want to be heard. But there’s a part of me that wants to release these songs so I can begin to focus on all the other songs that are flowing out of me, because new creations are fun and exciting!

That’s the eternal dance of the creative, though. Constantly creating, shifting attention and focus, endlessly juggling one creation or another…

There is no destination, because the creative will never reach a point where they say, “Okay, I’m done creating.” No, it’s always, “I’m going to create this other thing now.” The act itself may change form, but the presence is constant.

So, why rush it? There is no rush. I’m not going anywhere. As long as I am alive, I will create something, someway, somehow.

While the fullness of my passion doesn’t come out to play every single day, it’s still alive. Dormant, static, and patient—but ever-present.

Whether it settles to embers, maintains a steady burn, or is reignited into a wild blaze, it’s still there. When it comes alive, fully, brightly, the magic really happens.

So I allow my passion to choose its expression. Some days it’s creating art, designing, or writing. Most of the time, it’s music in one way or another. If I’m not practicing my songs, I’m passionately singing and dancing to songs I love. Moments of passion are sprinkled throughout most days.

I may be Green as the Soul, but red is universally the color of passion. In 2018, I made this bright red painting in a burst of passion. In 2020, I got my aura photo taken and it showed as all red. It’s no surprise that my painting looks awfully similar to my aura. Both are accurate representations of how my energy predominantly expresses itself at this point in my life.

My passion is showing and I can’t hide it.

Regardless of its form of expression, passion is a constant in my experience. I’m not in this for a season. I’m in this for life.

…And I’ll be singing, dancing, laughing, creating, and shredding into the unknown.

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Thanks for reading! What’s your relationship with passion? Let me know in the comments below.

My first single, Wild, is out now!