Blog: Into The Unknown

I remember when Frozen 2 came out. Whether you’re a fan of the franchise, of the installment or not, the message of the film was clear; you have to embrace & chase the unknown to become who you’re meant to be. It was not my intent going into this blog to make it about the second film in Disney’s smash hit world of Frozen but I have been engaging with a book the last few days called The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest & the stars ended up aligning with the computer animated universe in message.

If you read my last blog “If I’m Being Honest…” & saw my most recent Instagram post, you’ll know that lately I’ve been feeling rather lost & directionless in life & this feeling has been causing me mucho stress. I desperately wanted someone to come along & tell me which way I was meant to be going, what I was meant to be doing, etc. I was relying on an external someone I have now realized is irrational to think about & who I know is not coming. It’s also not someone else’s job to be that for me.

It’s now that I’d like to divert the conversation a little bit because apparently my last blog was not clear in my context. This is not how I feel spiritually, it is how I feel all around in life. In my thoughts, in my movements, in my motivation. I got a lot of “lean into God, lean into Jesus” comments & that’s not in the least bit what this is all about. I promise you, no one who is struggling with finding their identity wants to hear “you need religion” in any form. Apparently what we need is the hit Disney film, Frozen 2 released in 2019, starring Kristen Bell, Adele Dazeem, & Jonathan Groff…that’s a joke by the way, before you come for me in the comments section…

Back to my point.

This book, The Pivot Year, carries with it the tag line “365 Days To Become The Person You Truly Want To Be” of which there are 365 daily meditations for you to think about as you go about your business. Now, I’m going to be hyper realistic here & let you know with firm understanding or self, my ADHD will not allow me to get through all 365 days of this book. Just stating the facts here. I’m sure I’ll lose interest, or it’ll get put under something & I’ll forget the book exists entirely, but what it did do is remind me of the quantum mechanics in which the world functions.

I’ve stated this before & I stated it again earlier today in my Insta post, but we for the longest time knew the electrons of an atom existed not because we were able to see it but because we could measure its energy levels. It’s only recently that we discovered electrons, the physical negative charge of an atom that orbits the nucleus, exist in a quantum state. This means that they pop in & out of our ability to physical pin point them only at the point in which someone is trying to observe them. If we look at an atom, in its entirety, & don’t focus on the electrons of said atom, they won’t physically, visually exist to us. BUT if we turn our attention towards the illusive particle, they become precise before our very eyes. This is a phenomenon falls under something that we call the Copenhagen Interpretation.

I bring this up in part because it is what I have become. I have pinpointed the electron that says “I am lost” & therefore I am. I have become this thing because of a belief in its existence & the reaffirmation of its presence on almost a minute by minute basis. The daily meditations within The Pivot Year have help me to come to this revelation & to hopefully find a way forward by leaning into the unknown.

In the early meditations of the book it talks, as Joe Dispenza often does, about how the unknown is the opposite of a scary oppressive thing, but is in fact a chance for endless opportunity. Much as phrases like Carpe Diem try to express, tomorrow is not guaranteed, so why should the outcome be? If you have no idea what tomorrow holds why can’t it also hold the most positive, fulfilling thing possible? Why must we always view the vailed unknown with the fear of tragedy? What if we were to prepare for our future in a positive way instead the way we prepare for disaster to strike? Something akin to the opposite of doomsday prepping. What if I decided, today, as I write this, that I’m no longer lost? That I have purpose & drive & motivation to move towards the things that give me life? How quickly would a clear conclusion take form in my life?

If I can convince myself that I’m lost, that I’m not talented, that no one wants to work with me or help me or listen to/read my art, & have that manifest to some degree, then what would happen if I did the opposite? What would happen if I made myself believe that I am on the right path, that I’m abundantly talented, that everyone wants to work with me, support me, listen to my music, read my posts? Where would I end up?

What would happen if I leaned head first into the unknown & embraced it? Not as some dreaded thing but with wonder & as an endless stream of positive possibilities? I’m not saying to not be realistic, toxic positivity is very much a thing, I’m just thinking about reframing a mind set around the things we want, need, & the people we want to be. A mental ‘fake it til you make it’ if you will!

As always, much love to you all,

Thank you for reading!

-C

Blog: If I'm Being Honest...

If I’m being honest these blogs have become a difficult thing to maintain. It’s not out of any desire to stop creating them or any lack of time but instead out of a lack of inspiration. I started this part of my site as a way to engage with my audience about the things that I love, specifically when it comes to food & travel. I made this my public journey because I didn’t feel that I could properly share my expertise & adventures over further points of social media & wanted a place that was distinctly my own to fill with the inner machinations of my ever curious mind. However lately this has felt a bit like a constant uphill battle.

I used to look forward to writing these entries every week, but back when I started I had content to share & insight to give out. Now I feel like I’m doing my best to come up with a topic each week that people will find interesting & engaging. I wanted to start this as an expanded travel & advise blog but along the way, be it due to ADHD or lack of funds to cover the travel aspect of this, we drifted away. None of this is to say that I don’t still enjoy crafting this blog each week in the broadest of terms, I think I’ve just lost what made me feel like this was something special & am having a really hard time rediscovering that & creating entries that I think you all will find helpful & inspiring.

If I’m being honest, I feel burnt out but don’t want to stop the content drip because I know the moment I do I won’t pick this back up again. That’s just how I seem to function. This would be thrown to the wayside like so many other content projects that I started & fizzled out on & I really don’t want that to happen with this as well.

I’m sure many of you who keep up with me on the regular have noticed that my posts have been coming in late, or not showing up at all & I promise you it’s not from a lack of trying, I’m simply feeling entirely fried. If I’m being honest I feel as though, each week, it’s a losing battle to try & come up with a topic for this site that I can sit with & write an entire blog about. I don’t want to be this way & for a while the “requested blogs” were really helping that because it took my mind off of the pressure of what I feel is a near constant failing to incept anything meaningful topic-wise into my mind. I have become jaded & disheartened by the things that used to bring me joy because, if I’m being honest, I feel entirely lost at the moment.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing or not doing & it feels like everyone else has their life figured out or at least pointed in the right direction, but me. I just want so badly for someone to tell me, in earnest, what I should be doing & guide me along that path, but that’s not how life works is it? We are all our own people, our own psyches, our path is our own & it is distinct to each of us. I just feel like I got derailed somewhere along the way & I have been fighting to get back on course ever since.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant or for it to become a cry for attention because, as always, I write these blogs to forge connection. I lay my thoughts & my heart out to you all, not for your sympathies, but in the hopes that you will see this & think “wow, that’s me” & realize that your situation is not as lonely as I’m sure it feels. I’m grateful that I have the ability & opportunity to make the art that I create & to have been so many of the amazing places that fill the archives of this page, please know I never take that or your patronage for granted, but I know sometimes we all get lost & want just someone to stand up & say “I understand your struggle & it is valid.”

I will continue doing my best to post here weekly &, of course, on time, thought I can’t make any promises. I am a human after all, prone to failure & struggle, & that’s okay. You’re not always going to agree with what I have to say or the messages that I try to share & that’s also entirely okay. This is my platform to speak freely & openly in the hopes of finding like minded people or starting constructive dialogues. If you would like your own echo chamber to do the same I’d be more than happy to share my Squarespace referral code with you.

Wow, this blog has really gone awol hasn’t it?! I hope wherever you are, who eve you are, that you’re having a great weekend or a great whatever based on when it is that you found this post.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Stumbling Through Life

This past week when I arrived back home from Arizona I received an email from a site called Feedspot. In the email they congratulated me on being placed as one of their 70 Best Nashville Music Blogs & Websites in 2023 to which they assigned me the 35th place. Now, I never applied for this site, nor had I honestly heard of it until I received the email, additionally I know absolutely zilch about the site or company itself but at the end of the day I’m honored that I was even considered to be on the list at all. After all, this blog is often just a journal of my ramblings & misadventures, a collection of my thoughts & feelings. The crazy thing is that, for whatever reason, it connects with people & that is what I am most grateful for.

So be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing each Friday or Saturday when I post a new entry in this crazy chronicle. What started out as a way to share my travel expertise & taste has shifted into a bit of an enigma that I’m still not entirely sure I have a grasp on. I’ve mentioned it before in previous blogs just how random & unexpected this is at times but in all honesty it often feels like I’m just stumbling through life, randomly landing on the occasional accomplishment.

I think this is true of most things I do; I put out music & it often sticks in the most random of places but seldom the ones that I intend. Same goes for this space. The blogs I write out of pain, frustration, or exhaustion are often the ones that are still read to this day. So too are the ones that I write from random spur of the moment travels, not the ones I spend weeks crafting trying to give my best possible recommendations for the many places in the world that I have frequented. To say I feel a tad unmoored or aimless in my day to day would be an understatement.

Maybe that’s all a part of the human experience, maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, but it feels like most days I wake up with a big, fat question mark floating above my head. I spend most of my mornings trying desperately to figure out the course of my day. Do I still have lists of tasks & work that I do each day? Of course, but it feels a little like I’m going through the motions a bit with no real end in sight. I don’t mean to say I’m depressed, quite the opposite, of the most part I find myself content, which is something that I believe we should all strive for, but I wish I had a better sense of direction or overt purpose than what I feel on my average day.

Again, maybe I’m preaching to the choir here, or maybe this is entirely taboo to you as a reader but there are so many days that I wish someone would just grab me by the shoulders, look me dead in the eyes, & say ‘this is what you’re meant to be doing & this is how you get there.’ I wish there was an overt light or guide holding my hand through the blackness & pulling me towards my destination instead of feeling like a mast-less ship adrift in the middle of the Pacific surviving of a steady supply of rainwater, fresh fish, & a library of assorted books, musical instruments, & games. Did that analogy land or did it sink?…I’ll leave.

At the end of the day I am grateful. I am grateful that I get to spend my life creating in different fashions. I am grateful that I get to see & experience the world & all of the incredible beauties it holds. I am grateful that I have the space & lack of pressure to do something that is soul sucking & I am grateful to each of you out there who read or listen to the inner machinations of my mind & find them interesting enough to keep coming back. I am just longing for clear direction as so many of us do but in the mean time I intend to stay in my contentment & learn as I try to grow towards whatever end awaits me.

As always, much love to you all,

-C