Listen up.

Music moves me in ways not much else can. I’ve played the drums since I was 8 years old and took lessons for many years. You’ll often find me staring off into space or tapping on the nearest surface, if not my body, following along to a rhythm that’s playing in my head.

Metal is my preference, but I’m also heavily influenced by classical piano, soft & soothing tunes, or the sound of any voice that helps put me in a flow state.

You can tell a lot about a person by the style of music they listen to. The words and sound waves have power beyond just the audible aspect of music - music has influence over our entire being.

Scroll through some of the music that has shaped me throughout the past two decades below and follow along with pieces of the lyrics & some of my favorite poems and writings.

“

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone? 

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?

”

— Edgar Allan Poe

“

If you’re going to try, go all the way.

Otherwise, don’t even start.

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind.

It could mean not eating for three or four days.

It could mean freezing on a park bench.

It could mean jail. It could mean derision.

It could mean mockery — isolation.

Isolation is the gift.

All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it.

And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds.

And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.

If you’re going to try, go all the way.

There is no other feeling like that.

You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.

You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.

It’s the only good fight there is.

”

— Charles Bukowski

“

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion;

respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.

If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

”

— Chief Tecumseh

“

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who’s face is marred with dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.

But who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.

So that his place may never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

MAN IN THE ARENA.

”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“

Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole. I thank whatever Gods may be for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is

BLOODIED BUT UNBOWED.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears, looms but the horror of the shade. And yet the menace of the years find, and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll.

I AM THE MASTER OF MY FATE.

I AM THE CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL.

”

— William E. Henley