The dreaded virus, time stopping, and an album release

Elaborate plans killed by reality, as it goes

Last week, driving from a work trip in Vegas to see my family, I felt strangely inclined not to eat or drink much. I didn’t think much of it.

By the time I was suffering extreme chills that evening, I assumed I had gotten dehydrated over the weekend. Only by day three did I realize that I did, in fact, have what was likely the dreaded virus.

I spent the week in distracted pain and fatigue and various states of vulnerable delusion, and in this time the album I’ve been working on for almost a year went live according the planned schedule.

I had elaborate plans for the release. By the time October 15th’s release date came, all I could do was (heroically) put up a quick Instagram post, skip my mailing list and other socials, say a prayer, and go back to sleep.

It’s okay. This is life, and the common one of the artist. The real work of creating something beautiful is deeply taxing; it seems an often unfair joke that only when that entire labour of love that is art is completed, that the “real” work only begins: getting it out to those who would love it and benefit from it—those who make the entire enterprise worth all of the effort and outpouring.

(Only other artists, painstakingly committed to their craft, can understand the labour it takes.)

That I was also stunted due to sickness, even in the limited scope of sharing it currently available to me, is simply an aggravated symbol of these inherent challenges and not upsetting very much at all. Truth be told, although I didn’t enjoy the pain and sickness, the period away from work was something of a palate cleanser that I needed after a heavy last few months of work (of all kinds). Forced experiences of time stopping is something critical for human wellness; that I needed fairly extreme sickness to achieve it is a thought for another day.

Regardless, I feel peaceful and undeterred - due to the nature of online life, there are always many creative ways to continue to share. I plan to tell the stories of the songs, release more videos, and watch the project continue to blossom and touch hearts. The effect on the audience so far is humbling and beautiful; I believe it will reach many more thousands in the coming weeks, months, and years.

And yet the challenge of it all is real. This is one of the problems I am trying to solve for artists: how to convince many good people to shift focus to caring more about the arts again rather than the dopamine-striking glory of the political Hot Take. There isn’t a need so much for an elaborate plan for ME and my work, so much as a need for a general return to concern for and commitment to the arts as critical for our way back to a civilization that is not so hostile to the most important human needs and realities.

Many things need to happen: a baseline growing consciousness of its inherent value, a cultivation of real taste (please don’t listen to insufferable Twitter personalities on this), a rejection of poor sentimentality and moralism, a willingness to place monetary, attention-based, and time-absorbing resources behind its development and sharing. It’s a large task, but one we do need to take on if we hope for a better cultural landscape for our children.

Don’t get me wrong - I care a lot about politics, and many people need to care more than they do rather than smugly washing their hands of it. But our addiction to online drama is preventing a lot of the nourishment from the arts that could actually bring us some of the renewal we crave to counter so much evil around us. It’s a tragedy of pretty substantive proportions that the artists in any way right-leaning can only break through if they spend their time spouting about politics. It also says a lot about who we really are, and that a lot of our words about a better world are ultimately hollow. Man cannot live on political commentary alone.

I want conservative-spectrum [read: normal-ish; not rabid-left] artists to be more forthright about their convictions, because the world needs these voices. It currently believes we don’t really exist, at least as truly serious artists. But when hot Twitter takes have to take front seat if we would hope to reach even a humble audience with our craft, something is greatly amiss. It also isn’t common that those engaged in the hot takes make for the best artists; we risk losing the thoughtful quality usually cultivated in solitude that instils deep brilliance and beauty into artistic work when we indirectly insist that the artist be constantly, effectively, and harshly spouting in the town square.

I won’t solve this problem today, but I both hope and plan to make a dent in my lifetime.

For today, I just give you something beautiful. It’s my Catholic project/labour of love. I have a pop project and a folk project also in the queue; I spent large swaths of time in the studio in 2021 and 2022. Those will come in time. But beauty is a universal language, so even for the unreligious here, I encourage you to listen and find some solace and peace in the midst of a chaotic world.

The tracks will be available soon for free download on our site, and as I come further out of the cave into the land of the living, I’ll be sharing the tracks on YouTube as well. For now - anywhere else you stream music you’ll find Ch. III: The Songs Chapter.

Looking forward to sharing it with you now.

Share it with a friend; spread a little beauty. It matters more than you think.