How to Become a Successful Artist

By John Lucas Kovasckitz

I know. It’s a click-bait title. Written by...who? 

But I promise that I can help point the way. Hear me out. 

My artistic form of choice is songwriting / music, but I think that what I have to say applies to all forms of art and artists. Furthermore, I think we’re all supposed to live in a state of creativity, and our lives themselves are our art forms...so I think, really, this applies to everyone.

I began writing songs at a young age, and started recording them in my shared bedroom in the basement when I was probably seventeen (all good success stories begin either within a basement or garage). I wrote songs that moved me...songs that were so bare and raw - and so obviously recorded and sung by a teenager that didn’t know what he was doing - that I kind of hated when people I knew found them online. I loved the anonymity of the internet...and in many ways I still do. 

Needless to say, not many people downloaded my songs at first, and they were free-99. 

And that, my friends, is how every good success story begins. 

I was obviously not a successful artist, because - aside from the fact that my art was, objectively, not very good - few people paid any attention to my music, and I didn’t make a dime from it. 

Furthermore, I recorded it on my own...and, as everyone knows (or as they knew way back in the olden days - ten years ago), all legitimate music is recorded in a studio and backed by a label. 

Over ten years later, I’m still making music. Here’s where a good success story would fast-forward to the present day, playing peppy music over montages of me arm-in-arm with Bono or Jay-Z in the studio smoking a cigar, and then driving home in my Tesla to a mansion on the coast. 

My wife and I currently live in a duplex, and I still mainly drive the same rusty Subaru hatchback that I did when I recorded my first song. I don’t know Jay-Z or Bono, and I’m a household name in very few houses.

Two years ago, Danielle and I quit our full-time jobs with benefits to travel, and I started telling people that I was a songwriter when they asked what I did. I’ve had some successes: I made around $20,000 for having 15 seconds of a song you could barely hear in a Google commercial, and my music has been on a couple of not-great TV shows. In the age of streaming, a considerable amount of people around the world have listened to my music, and some have become die-hard supporters of my work. But compared to the “big” artists, my numbers are pretty paltry. Most highschoolers have more Instagram followers than I do.

I’m neither trying to humble-brag nor to wallow in self-pity. I’m filled with gratitude that I can support my family through what I create. Unfortunately, it’s fairly difficult to make any money as an artist...let alone to pay your bills. I’ve been able to do it for two years, and I think that’s worth celebrating. But with a baby on the way and my wife going back to school, I’ve been side-hustling hard lately. In addition to music, I clean Airbnbs, I help in a wood shop, and I’m an extra hand at a local venue for events. And everyone knows that successful artists don’t have side-hustles.

By the standards of most, after ten years of making music, and with a kid on the way, it’s probably about time to get a real, steady, job again…this time for good.

By the standards of most, I’ve had some successes as an artist, but I am not a successful artist. 

Someone asked me a handful of years ago (before I had found a bit more monetary “success” with my music) if I counted up all of the time over the years that I had spent practicing and making music and sweating for it, how much I would have made per hour. Ten cents? A quarter? ...Implying that perhaps, within Capitalism, my labor-power was not being very well spent. 

I don’t think this person realized how hurtful his question was at the time. I was making music that I believed in, and I was working hard to get it out there in the world. However, what hurt the most was - within the typical Western Capitalist confines of value - his implications were probably right.

You’ve read a good bit into this post, so I’ll just go ahead and give away the secret.

You want to know how to be a successful artist? By creating. That’s it. Nothing more. 

If I had spent ten years making music, and it was a net drain on my assets and hardly anybody listened to what I put out there...but I really believed in what I was making, I would consider myself a successful artist. Looking back, I was a successful artist at seventeen. I was growing my craft, I was learning, and I was leaning into bravery.

I get a lot of messages from people that express how much my music has meant to them…that it’s been a companion through the hard times and good. And I treasure these interactions, but I’ll take it further: if no one listened to my music, but I created art that was meaningful to me, I would still consider myself a successful artist. Creating, for me, is communion with the Creator. The slow process of creation has sharpened me and softened me...it has made me more Aware. 

Money, accolades, followers, etc. are all byproducts of - and thus, inconsequential to - my foundational success as an artist: creating art that I believe in.

I forget this most days, but sometimes I remember.

I think that the person making art that they believe in - while not making a dime for it - is far more successful than the rich “artist” selling his soul to make meaningless products that he thinks people want to buy. 

This is not to say that to be a true artist you must be impoverished (I believe artists that add to the human experience should be paid, and paid well!), or that you cannot be making authentic art if you become financially wealthy from it. I’m just saying that I believe our metrics of success are wrong. I’m saying that it’s wrong if our value of someone and what they create is based solely on the amount of copies sold, or the amount of their streams or followers, or their net worth. 

I’m saying that I believe the message is more important than the influence; I’m saying that I think five people given the truth is far greater than five million people sold a lie. 

And to the subject of side-hustles and front-hustles and just generally working your butt off to support your creativity: set your pride aside and do it. Enjoy the work, and let it be a part of your communion with Creation. One of my favorite people that I know has his doctorate degree, and felt that teaching university level courses took up too much of his creative energy, so he delivered pies in his van for Pizza Hut for awhile. And I think that’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard.

Being an artist requires having a different value system.

The world needs artists. The world needs your unique perspective…the Universal needs the particular. The world needs you to speak truth to power, and it needs you to remind us how strong love is. It needs you to remind us what’s important. The world needs the work of artists as companions through death and heartbreak and birth and marriage and everything in-between.

And I think this post is as much for myself as anyone else. I think it’s one that I’ll need to come back to...because it’s so easy to forget when a ten-second video of a cat will get astronomically more plays than something into which you’ve poured your blood and soul. 

If money, listeners / viewers, or influence is your metric for success, you will always be empty and will never have enough...because someone will always have more. 

Comparison is the thief of joy.

When success is the struggle and release of creating, you will eventually find it if you wrestle long enough. 

I am going to keep wrestling. I am going to keep making music. I am going to keep writing. I am going to keep loving my wife, and I’m soon going to meet our son outside of the womb. I am going to teach him how to love and to grow as best as I can, but I suspect he will teach me much more. I am going to keep dreaming. And I am going to keep going.

And I also hope you keep adding to the world in the ways that make you most come alive.

Be brave. Create.

To close, I’ll leave you with the lyrics to a song I finished recently…and then a short video that has become a companion for me over the years.

Everybody’s slaying just to get ahead 

Yeah everybody’s slaving just to get ahead

But you’ll never be free if you’re chaining those behind 

Or if you’re selling your soul on the dotted line

I ain’t selling my songs to the record man 

‘Cause their radio stations won’t reach this land

I ain’t moving to the city and changing my name

You can keep your money you can keep your fame

You can gain the whole world

But it’ll cost your soul

Oh everybody dies

Clinging to fool’s gold

Give me what’s real

What doesn’t rust or fade

Come hell or high water

Come judgement day

Give me my job at the corner store

And I will sell liquor ‘til we close the doors

We can keep the lights on, just fine

And I can pay the rent on time 

Give me my garden and the morning dew

And give me my wife with her worn out shoes

Give me my son with his toothy grin

And I would live this life again 

Yeah I would live this life again

You can gain the whole world

But it’ll cost your soul

Oh everybody dies

Clinging to fool’s gold

Give me what’s real

What doesn’t rust or fade

Come hell or high water

Come judgement day

We Shall Overcome

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

Inspired by the words and life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the work still left to be done - part of which is addressed in The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. 

We shall, we shall
we shall overcome -
my white brothers,
my white sisters. 

We shall overcome
the dark shadows of oppression
that we have cast -
at times with calculation,
at times without thought. 

Shadows
passed down like family heirlooms - 
we shall break the curse
and take up a new name,
a new mantle of righteousness. 

We shall overcome our power
that blinds us to the powerless.
We shall overcome our wealth
that starves and displaces the poor. 

We shall overcome
our apathy
our contempt
our fear
our comfort and self-preservation
through the path of destruction. 

We shall overcome our borders
until there are no outsiders.
We shall overcome our religions
until we see God.
We shall overcome our man-made structures
of law and order
that have ordered the laws
in our image - 
until our law is love,
and our gospel peace. 

Oh Lord, 
give us the courage
to open the prison doors
that have enslaved our brothers. 
Oh brother: 
I am the thief,
the swindler,
the criminal - 
and I have judged you wrongly from afar. 
Forgive me, brother, 
for I have sinned against you
and against God. 

Oh Lord, 
give us the moral fortitude
to wash the feet of the prostitute
with our own hair. 
Oh sister,
oh daughter of the King, 
no longer will you sell your body
to hollow power
for hollow bread. 
You will be honored,
you will be loved. 

Oh Lord,
give freedom to the captives,
bring justice to the oppressed - 
through our hands and our feet,
our blood and our tears.

Let us suffer with joy alongside those
who have suffered enough. 

Oh beautiful
Brothers,
Sisters,
this is my body,
broken for you. 

We shall overcome.
All of us.

For The Path of Suffering
leads to the Kingdom of God.

Family X // Jesus Was a Black Man

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

Several months ago, I found The Autobiography of Malcolm X on a shelf in my parents' house. It once belonged to my Aunt Alison - one of my favorite people, and a true lover of books - who passed away a few years ago. It was an autographed copy (signed by Alex Haley, who pieced together Malcolm's thoughts to create the book), and a typed sheet found inside told the story of how she had been the first to bound onto the stage for the autograph after hearing Haley speak at an event...despite her previous embarrassment of gushing her love for his work, mistakingly, to the man introducing Haley instead of Haley himself. This encounter was mentioned during the introduction for the evening, and got a big laugh from the audience...but my aunt was never one to let her embarrassment stand in the way. She loved life, and lived fully to the end.

Because of my love for my aunt, and the fact that the book was briefly held by the man who sat for years with Malcolm to create it, I read the book as carefully as I could. However, it was an aged paperback, and the spine separated from the cover and fell apart in chunks as I read it. 

The piece that struck me the most, recounted by Malcolm speaking as he would at the time as a rigid member of The Nation of Islam: "The blond-haired, blue-eyed white man has taught you and me to worship a white Jesus, and to shout and sing and pray to this God that's his God, the white man's God. The white man has taught us to shout and sing and pray until we die, to wait until death, for some dreamy heaven-in-the-hereafter, when we're dead, while this white man has his milk and honey in the streets paved with golden dollars right here on this earth!" 

Over the past several years, my theology and my relationship with Christianity as a religion has separated from the spine and fallen apart in chunks in my hands. Some pieces I have kept and hold dearly, some pieces I have burned, others I hold loosely with questions. Many within the Christian faith would call this a sacrilege - to sift through, to choose truth from "the ultimate and unchanging Truth"...if indeed this exists.

But I think that within any faith or religion this is what we must do to follow the Spirit: to sift, to weigh, to hold and to let go, to be open to new understandings. Jesus often began: "You have heard this, but I tell you this..."

Throughout history, religion (certainly the Christian religion) has been used to justify the unjustifiable. The Bible and Christianity has historically been manipulated and twisted by the powerful to provide moral foundation for genocide, colonialism, slavery, theft of land and resources...essentially the gamut of all injustices - from deeply personal to the scope of all humanity. And simultaneously, in the name of Christ, the world has received an outpouring of love and deeds that have changed the very foundations of the earth. As my friend Dominic Laing writes, "A hammer can build a home or crack a skull. It’s all in how you use it." 

And I believe where the misuse and the dark manipulation of religion begins is at the point when we believe to have arrived at ultimate truth...when we have tasted the apple and begin to form God in our own image. This is perhaps quite easy for the powerful: to believe that they were given their status through the desires of the Divine, and to act and speak with that authority. It's easy to create a White Jesus preoccupied with punishing and enslaving those without power, a White Jesus preoccupied with the afterlife to avoid the injustices taking place here and now. 

Jesus was lynched on a tree.

I invite you to let that sink in a bit. 

A crucifixion is ancient, barbaric, and holds little meaning in the present day. A lynching is a fresh wound in the span of our history. Jesus was lynched on a tree. That wording changes something inside of me. It changes my view of Jesus. It changes my view of Christianity. 

Jesus was lynched on a tree for being a threat to the religious leaders (following rigidly the first books of the modern Bible) and the powerful, for claiming to be the Son of God...when at the time this was believed of Caesar - the ruler of men.

If Jesus was lynched on a tree a hundred years ago in America, who would have comprised the threatened religious establishment? Who would his followers be? Who would have done the lynching? Who would have shouted for his death, and who would have watched?

What about today?

I pose the question because I believe that the great majority of the Religious Institution of the current White American Church, and those holding power, would be as hell-bent on the destruction of the life and message of Jesus as the political and religious leaders were at the time of his crucifixion...his lynching. 

For the past couple of months, I've been recording "Family X": a collection of songs that are the overflow of my wrestlings with injustice - historic and current - as a white, American, male. Historically speaking, I have been given a great amount of power simply by being born. 

My heart breaks for the injustices taking place both in America and around the world, but I often feel like injustices such as racism and the plight of those in crippling poverty and slavery are not my story to tell...that I am not welcome in the march for freedom. It almost feels a perversion, for I know that (at the very least indirectly) my place of power and comfort requires the back of the "other" in poverty, the slave, the alien. 

And yet, deep in my soul - and even logically - as a white, privileged, American male, my silence is the greater perversion. I don't wish to give scraps from my table to ease my conscience or to soothe White guilt, but to be a part of the growing revolution for true justice and brotherhood. 

Malcolm Little changed his surname to X, the X representing the unknown name of his African ancestors and their culture that had been lost during slavery. The title "Family X" pays homage to this loss, but also eludes to the oneness of all life outside of our constructed borders of what 'family' denotes. Through our borders and exclusion is where injustice begins.

The cover art for the album is a photograph taken by my grandfather of his children - Aunt Alison is front and center, my mother in the right corner holding the doll. This photograph is a mirror of myself, the womb from which I was born.

I cannot, and would not, change my heritage or family. I cannot, and would not, change the color of my skin or my upbringing. I personally hold little besides love and gratitude. 

But acknowledging the perceptions and expectations that are knowingly and unknowingly placed on my shoulders for what I cannot control, how can I live in a way that gives life instead of robbing it? How have I consciously or unconsciously "othered" a people group to consciously or unconsciously elevate myself? How have my personal choices prolonged the narrative of oppression for people of color, people of different sexual orientation, the immigrant, the planet itself?

I invite you to personally pose these same questions. For those within the American church, I invite you to critically question where your faith is producing life and fruit, and where it is contributing to oppression for the outsider. 

The bridge of the title track, "Family X", from the view of the Creator, the good Father, the Spirit-Mother to all of humanity, ends:

I'm in the borders of the refugee
I'm in chains with those in slavery
But I'm not caged in your theology
You cannot rob my grace from me

For you have waged wars in my name
And crippled my children with shame
Divided with fire and flame
But hallelujah
The son of man rises again

You cannot rob my grace from me
You cannot take away my family

Malcolm X was gunned down during a speech by members of The Nation of Islam, the organization for which Malcolm gave much of his life, until he disbanded and made public the falsities and abuses of power found within. It was clear that at the end of his life Malcolm knew that he would be killed, either by assassination through the FBI or The Nation of Islam. He continued speaking out, and died for what he believed. 

"Family X" is set to release on February 21, the anniversary of Malcolm's death. My hope is that these songs continue his fight for truth and justice...but foremost my hope is that these songs point to the teachings of the true Christ, who first died for us as the human embodiment of the character and heart of the Creator. We are all the sons and daughters of the Creator, and I believe family to be the revolution. Where there is true family there is no "other", no outsider. 

When attempting to write this post, it first came out in poetic form...before my longwinded fingers caught up with the rest. I'd like to share it below. Thanks for being on this journey with me, and for listening. I hope that I can step on your toes, and that you can step on mine, but at the end of the day we can break out the bread and wine together.

Cheers,
Lucas

Jesus Was a Black Man

Jesus did not stand
When the flag of the empire
Was unfurled
He was a threat
To the kingdoms of earth
To the masters of slaves

Jesus was a revolutionary
Who was lynched on a tree

And I looked on
And I didn't say a word

I didn't say a goddamned word. 

I didn't drive the nails into his hands
Or press the thorns in his brow
Or kick
Or whip
Or mock
Or curse
I just looked on
And I didn't say a word

But I can't shake the dream
That I'm shouting
Crucify him
That my white hands
Are stained red with his blood

I'm shouting
Back of the bus
Nigger
God hates fags
Build the wall
Make the empire
Great
Again

And I wake
And I don't know what is real
Or a dream
Anymore

Is my silence
An absolution
Or is my silence
An abomination
A whip
A stone
A curse

Jesus, rise from the dead
In me
Roll away the stone
Of my own whitewashed tomb

Wash me not white as snow
Make me black as fertile soil

Open my ears
To the song of the oppressed
Teach me to sing
And I will open my mouth

Guide me to the tree
And I, too, will lay down my life
For my brother
For my Mother

An interview with Benjamin James

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz with Benjamin James Roberts

(Mobile devices are fine, but due to the visual aspects included, this interview is best viewed via a computer.)

---

Ben, by trade, is a musician, photographer, and videographer. Sliding in and out of his different creative roles he requires two personas to keep things straight: Benjamin James for music and Ben Roberts for his visual work.

Ben is also one of my favorite people on the planet, a man who holds my deepest respect.

He's consistently been one of my closest allies for my own creative pursuits - freely sharing his advice and experiences, contributing to my work (he's played piano and provided vocals for both "Promised Land" and "A Thousand Cathedrals"), and his opinion is one I value extremely highly. But above all, I value Ben as my friend and brother. 

He stood by my side on my wedding day and left it all on the dance floor, we've explored Iceland together with our spouses and good friends ("Love Teach Me" below - filmed on our trip), and we've sipped a lot of tea together asking the difficult questions of faith, philosophy, and how we are to live. 

Ben is a listener, a deep observer, and subsequently a teacher by example. And when he sets his mind to something, he's all in...and it shows in his work and in his life. 

Ben's work is simultaneously abstract and deeply personal; to this point, the subject of a great portion of his conceptually visual work is his wife, Lydia. Ben's portfolio is breathtaking (pieces placed throughout his interview, and a link at its conclusion) and he has amassed recordings of over 30 (incredible) songs in the past few years.

Check out his portfolio, dive into his music, check out his synth skills (currently on a U.S. tour in John Mark McMillan's band through mid-November), but first: keep scrolling. Ben's interview has nuggets of gold, folks.

//

 

In a variety of avenues, you make your living by being creative. What are some of your practices to remain creatively sharp, and what advice would you have for others to help to foster and grow their own inner creative flames?

Ben: Practice is really the key word for me here. I used to think of creativity as some kind of magical process in which the gods randomly chose a tortured artist to be their mouthpiece for a day. This view sometimes fosters the absurd belief that an artist doesn’t have any “influences” but just creates things out of thin air, regardless of their cultural situation. Instead, I think it’s more accurate to define the creative process as a discovery of unexpected connections. In other words, the creative person is able to combine things that everyone else thinks are incompatible. With this in mind, the practice of creativity involves gathering as many influences as possible and seeing how they might work together. Legos provide a good analogy: you can create something nice with a few legos, but the more building blocks you have, the more interesting a structure you can build. The magic of legos, and creativity in general, is not the fact that the individual legos can combine to create a structure, but that different combinations will be created depending on who is building.

For me, staying creatively sharp requires: 1. A constant gathering of influences that I find inspiring and excellent (new music, new photography, new videos). And 2. Developing my skill set enough that I am able to actually make my ideas a reality. Another analogy: let’s say that inspiration is water and your skill set is a funnel. The larger your funnel - aka, the greater your skill set - the more water can come through. You can see why it’s important to keep your skill set and your influences well balanced; there’s no use gathering an ocean of influences if your funnel will only let it trickle out. Conversely, there’s no use, from a creative standpoint, in developing your skill but not gathering enough inspiration to do something new and exciting.

To put it simply: practice a lot, and constantly expose yourself to amazing work other people are doing in the same area.

If, for example, you are a writer, read the best, most beautiful books in the world. Then, figure out why those books are the best, use whatever you find in your own writing (practice), then repeat the process with an author of a totally different style. It really doesn’t have to be much more complicated than that. Imagine the style of Victor Hugo (who wrote Les Miserables) paired with the science fiction storytelling of Isaac Asimov (The Foundation Trilogy, I Robot). Or, in music, what do you get when you add Kendrick Lamar with Bob Dylan and Bon Iver? Could be pretty interesting. The last thing I would say is to simply refuse to stop creating. Of course it feels terrible when somebody doesn’t like something you’ve made, but as long as you keep going, you’ll eventually make something that you can be proud of and that other people will appreciate.  

Your latest album is entitled “Change Is Everything”. What are some of the physical and spiritual foundations of this thesis that you have found to hold true? Also, personally – either currently or aspirationally – how do you see yourself transforming and evolving?

Ben: Well first I want to preface by saying that the statement "Change is Everything" is a metaphysical claim that has some strong implications and brings with it a whole set of difficult philosophical problems which I am not qualified to solve. Instead, maybe I'll focus on why the idea interested me in the first place and what it could mean for the way we approach reality.

For me, spirituality was always tied in some way or another to the natural world. My Mom jokes sometimes that all it takes to make me happy is camping and food. But my relationship to the natural world really changed when I began learning about sustainability and humanity's relationship to the planet in general. At that point, treating the planet (and my body as a part of the planet) appropriately became an ethical problem. That was all fine, but I was still aware that there were deep problems in the way I saw things. I had heard someone say that the less you know about philosophy the more likely you are to be controlled by it. That was definitely true for me. I was approaching the world as if Aristotle's work on Physics and Metaphysics were still the authoritative understanding of nature. In that way of thinking, the world is made of substances whose natural state is to be at rest, separate from other things. Everything that moves only does so as a result of being "pushed" by a mover. Rene Descartes, a French philosopher in the 17th century, carried this line of thought further by positing the existence of two different substances that the world was made of. The first of these substances was matter, the second spirit, or mind. Following from the definition of substance these two things were necessarily separate in the strongest sense of the word. We then have a world in which the mind is completely separate from matter, and matter is made of isolated things that do not depend on anything else for their existence. It’s a lonely, valueless picture of the universe.

This is no longer the dominant view of science. But I think that this line of thought has contributed much to the lack of value we place in our planet, as well as our feeling that we are somehow separate from it. It's much easier for me to destroy my own body or dump plastic in the ocean if I think that matter has no inherent value and that I am not ultimately affected by anything that happens to it.

So with this in mind, I've been trying to explore new ways of looking at myself and the world. That is the real subtext of the new album. For me, saying that "Change is Everything" is a way of resolving some of these problems. It's a reference to Process philosophy, which says that the world is not made of things; the world is made of events. These events are then composed entirely of relationships; everything is in the process of becoming. This can seem pretty non-intuitive but think about this: if we could live for a billion years, objects like rocks - which seem very permanent - would look like a momentary getting together of sand. Another helpful visualization is the fact that glass, although it appears to be solid, is technically a slow moving liquid. It's common to look at something like a flower and to assume that it is separate from everything else, but why should we believe this? There are no such things as flower atoms. A flower is made of completely non-flower elements. When springtime comes the sun, the dirt and the rain are drawn up into a beautiful symphony that we call "flower". But how can we understand the flower without referencing the rain? Or the rain without understanding the clouds? Or the clouds without talking about the ocean? The ocean without the rivers? Or the dirt without talking about the minerals and the worms? How can we talk about the sun without mentioning the Milky Way? In this way, our flower is not just itself, it is the entire universe as expressed in a pretty little plant. The same is true of us humans. As Carl Sagan once said, "We are made of star stuff".

In a process view of reality, relationships are fundamental. But these cannot be two things in relationship, then we are just using Descartes' vocabulary. We are in the habit of thinking of things like "left" and "right" as two separate entities in relationship with one another. But imagine a 12-inch ruler: it has a right side and a left side, and is connected by the tick marks that run across its surface. But if we cut it in half we haven't separated the left from the right, we have only created a new left and right. That's because left and right go together. It's very useful to talk about them like they are separated - and we should continue to do so, for the sake of convenience - but we have to keep in mind that we are imposing an arbitrary distinction, and that distinction is most likely not a characteristic of the physical object. Now to stretch our analogy as far as possible: replace the 12-inch ruler with the universe itself and the process view of reality as made of ever-changing relationships comes into focus. It is similar to the root systems of redwood trees. Although Redwoods seem incredibly tall, their root system is comparatively tiny. In order to remain standing, they spread their roots as far out as possible and mingle with the roots of other redwoods, and collectively they are able to stand. Nothing exists in isolation, everything depends on everything else.

Another consequence of this line of thinking is that the idea of a Self dissolves. If I am not just a thing that changes but a set of ever-changing relationships then there can be no fundamental distinction between myself and the world. And further, who I am in this moment is not who I was or who I will be. This is very much in line with my experience. When I think of who I was in high school I barely recognize myself. I've found that every experience changes me on some level. There is also potential for a therapeutic approach to life latent in this. If everything is always changing, it is useless to try to hold on so tight to things. When something bad happens it's natural to adapt to that situation in whatever way we can, and then continue to act that way whenever an analogous situation arises. This can be helpful and important for a time, but once the situation has changed and we are no longer in danger, we need to be able to re-adapt to our new environment in a way that is appropriate and non-destructive. I'm not saying that all of our traumas would be resolved if we would just be in the moment and realize that things have changed since the original trauma occurred. But I am saying is that this understanding of things gives us a way to work through those issues on a daily and even momentary basis.

One of the things I love about you is your thirst and quest for knowledge, and the subsequent excitement of discovery and understanding. What’s “blowing your mind” these days, and what have been some of the monumental books or texts in your personal quest that you would recommend?

Ben: Currently my mind is being blown wide open by science, philosophy and critical thinking. Up until the presidential election last year I was mostly against these things, thinking that they were dangerous to the creative process and hopelessly inadequate attempts to get at the truth. I think I was wrong. In a world of “alternative facts” and “fake news” I don’t think we have the luxury of subscribing to such weak epistemological foundations (by epistemology I mean “how we know what we know” and “why we believe certain things”). This sounds a little academic, but bear with me. I realized that the foundation for most of my beliefs had nothing to do with evidence but with my desire for things to be a certain way. This caused me a lot of anxiety because I was constantly being confronted by a reality that didn’t act the way I thought it should, and as a result I had to either change my beliefs in such moments or try to ignore/suppress the evidence that was telling me I was wrong. Most events in our lives aren’t intense enough to warrant a total change in belief system, but some demand it. And when we find ourselves in those situations my experience has been that it is dangerous to ignore the facts. Of all epistemological systems I know of, I think that the scientific method is most aware of this. That is because science is attempting to explain the world not as it should be, but how it is. And it turns out that scientist are actually serious about this. If new evidence suggests that the current explanation is inadequate, they will try to find a better explanation. In this sense, nothing in science is sacred except truth itself. While this certainly shouldn’t be applied to every area of our lives (especially not Ethics), I think we could all learn something from this approach.

Smartphones and the internet have made information more available than food for some people. And if that constant stream of information is here to stay, we will all need a better way of figuring out what we should or should not believe. If the only criteria for our believing something is whether or not we like it, or whether or not it works to our advantage, we are setting ourselves up for a lot of disappointment, and even more anxiety. I’m finding that skepticism and critical thinking are a really good way of addressing this problem. And, ironically, they have actually increased my sense of wonder and imagination. It turns out that reality is sometimes more interesting and crazy than anything we could have thought of.

But I do want to reiterate that, at this point, I'm not trying to say that science and philosophy are the only valid way of seeking truth. I just think that they are very important for maintaining a strong democracy as well as a strong belief system.

Here are some books that have been really influential for me. I can’t say that I agree with everything in these books, but they have changed me nonetheless:

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand     

Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

Animal Farm - George Orwell

The Perennial Philosophy - Aldous Huxley

A Psychological Approach to the Trinity - Carl Jung

Discourse on Inequality Among Mankind - Jean Jacques Rousseau

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Germinal - Emile Zola

The Three Pillars of Zen - Phillip Kaplan

Zen Mind, Beginners Mind - Shunryu Suzuki

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

Reality is Not What it Seems - Carlo Rovelli

The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan

Currently reading: The Big Picture by Sean Carrol and The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Connect with Ben: 

http://www.benrobertsphoto.com

Instagram: @benjaminjamesmusic

Music: Spotify / iTunes

John Lucas song spotlight - Son of God

Author: John Lucas Kovasckitz

Tomorrow, those of us in the States will celebrate America's birthday. It's been a few years since I've been able to partake, but the Kovasckitz family tradition is to gather in the small town of Hope Mills, NC for the 4th of July. My grandparents' house is on Main Street, and the annual parade passes right in front of their house. My grandpa, who passed away a couple of years ago, would dress up Newt (his large stuffed gorilla) in his typical Notre Dame Fighting Irish shirt with an American flag in its hand. Newt would sit on grandpa's lap, and would wave at the floats.

The kids (and the more competitive aunts and uncles - Aunt Di, I'm looking at you), would line chairs and towels as close to the road as possible, but we didn't stay in our seats much. We would scramble for the candy thrown by the beauty pageant queens, the firefighters, and the clowns. Later, we would bring the loot to the living room, where the cousins would wager their Tootsie Rolls and Starbursts within fairly intense Texas Hold'em showdowns for the glory and spoils. We would then play croquet or football in the yard until we got too hot, swim, and then repeat until the fireworks that night. Not to be forgotten, Kovasckitzs are well known for their ability to eat large quantities of food, and our power would be on grand display throughout the day.

I have loved celebrating the 4th of July, and I will do so tomorrow. And yet, I know some of you will relate when I say that the holiday brings with it mixed emotions...especially this year. 

There's a twinge of hesitation to shoot explosives into the air and to holler in celebration of an empire that rose to power through the genocide of the lands' native peoples, and on the backs of slaves pulled from their own homeland. I find it hard to raise my glass to a nation that spends more on our military than the next eight nations combined, which has caused untold destruction and death. This year the United States is in quite lonely company with our decision to pull out of the global agreement to acknowledge and to attempt to combat climate change. It is also no secret that I am not a supporter of POTUS 45: Donald J. Trump...

And yet, this is my homeland. This is the land that I love. And I believe that she is already beautiful, and that she can be made even greater. Not the empire, but the land. The people. 

I'm going to spend tomorrow with my wife and family, grateful for the life that I have been given. I'm going to shoot off fireworks for our friends, Josh and Carolyn, who welcomed their newborn son Jonas into the world today. I'm going to drink to the Redwoods, the Grand Tetons, the coast of Washington State, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

God bless America.

God bless America with eyes for the poor. God bless America with a people that stands up against the empire. God bless America with discomfort. God bless America with a thriving economy of love and compassion. God bless America with humility. God bless America with the ability to see those outside of our borders as equals, as brothers and sisters of the human race - even those with brown skin and without resources. God bless America with death and rebirth.

I am no longer able to pledge allegiance to the flag. I can't place my hand over my heart and say the words. The empire - America - is not my God. And I think perhaps often we get the two confused.

When God is on our side, our economy flourishes.

When God is on our side, our military is victorious. 

When God is on our side, our church buildings are full. The offering plates overflow.

Deeper still.

When God is on our side, we have a beautiful partner. 

When God is on our side, we can always pay our bills.

When God is on our side, the disease goes away. 

When God is on our side, we are a white-American-heterosexual-Christian, a former wretch saved by grace, but now practically perfect in every way.

I think God is less concerned with choosing sides than dwelling within. Dwelling within those inside and outside of our constructed borders. That said, I don't believe that God dwells on the side of the empire...the empires of our nations and corporations, our churches, or our own personal empires.

We all hold empires inside of our chests. We personally pledge allegiance to comfort-food-sex-sleep-entertainment-power-wealth-fame.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Give me the bravery to value the kingdom unseen above the empire that is seen.

I recently recorded an album called "A Thousand Cathedrals". Available on all empires of music: Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, Apple Music, etc...

There are a couple of songs in particular that draw on the theme of empires, one of them being Son of God. I've gotten a fair amount of requests to explain a bit of the heart behind the lyrics, which are based on the temptations of Jesus (found in Matthew 4). In the passage, Jesus is tempted by Satan, or the devil...the enemy of God. I see in this being the collection or representation of evil - (at least in this case) it seems that it is an inner conflict, perhaps the ego of Jesus himself. For if Jesus was fully man, he must have battled his own ego, as do we all. On a bit of a side note, I find it fairly interesting that it seems the devil is quite good at quoting scripture...

If you're the son of God...

The song begins with the temptations of Jesus by Satan, and slowly progresses into our own temptations of Jesus. Protect my borders, crush the heads of my enemies. Give me comfort. Protect my empire.

And I believe that the response the song builds to is the response of God, when we act out of a state of empire instead of kingdom. Kingdom being that which manifests God through the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Empire is that which builds a kingdom in our own image: jealousy, lust, selfishness, greed, injustice, revenge...

Away from me, I never knew you.

Remember, my creation, my love, that which is inside of you. Be made wild again. 

I invite you to meditate on the passage, and then to listen to the song as you read through the lyrics. And tomorrow, let us celebrate kingdom and not empire.

Thy kingdom come, Father. Thy will be done. 

Amen and amen.

---

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’"

Matthew 4:1-10

If you're the son of God
Throw yourself down
Surely your father will heed your call
Surely the angels will catch your fall

If you're the son of God
Then why do you starve? 
Turn the rocks into loaves of bread
Find pleasure in the evening within your bed

If you're the son of God
Then why is there pain? 
Are you weak, or are you not good? 
Oh will you be defeated by a cross of wood? 

If you're the son of God
Vanquish my enemies
Protect my borders and securities
And crush the heads of those who'd rob my peace

Oh praise the son of God
The one who has set me free
He is my passage from the gates of hell
He is my refuge from the infidel

Oh praise the son of God
Who knows my every will
For pleasure is the blessing, child
And I must have my fill

Away from me, away from me
I never knew you
You are the cell that holds my child within
Fling open the doors and be made wild again
Away from me, away from me
I never knew you