Music is Service

I am studying a course called "Endurance", and this is my first Action Project. For this Action Project I had to write the first chapter to my own autobiography, 30 years into the future. I imagined myself being 47 years old, recalling all the goals I have achieved and difficulties I have endured. During this first unit, called "Morpheus", I learned a lot about myself. I identified my strengths and weaknesses, challenged my mental and physical abilities,  and learned about how other characters in history have coped with trials and difficulties of all kinds, such as Ernest Shackleton and his crew aboard the Endurance. My autobiography is titled "Music is Service", and its first chapter is found below, titled "Melodies of my Childhood ,Youth and Adulthood"

RS

Music is Service

Chapter 1: Melodies of my Childhood, Youth, and Adulthood

RS, My Very First Art Piece.

There’s this rock-in-my-shoe kind of memory that has been bugging me for years now. I’ve never really known what to do about it, and every time I try to shut this memory for good it just keeps popping up. Recently though, by coincidences of life I have begun to look at this memory from another angle, and what do you say! From one moment to another it has become more of an inspiration than anything else. An inspiration that has led me to writing an autobiography. 

This memory is my 17 year old self. I remember how he often would find himself troubled, especially when thinking about the future. And at times I still hear his voice, somewhere deep within me asking himself “will things work out okay? Will I ever be able to share my thoughts with the world? Where does music fit in all this mess? Will I ever form a beautiful family?” Usually my response to such questions is “shut up! You had your time already. I’m living now”. But this time, this book, is me letting my 17 year old self know that thanks to his first efforts I’ve been able to learn how to share with the world what it is that I’ve had the fortune of learning. To share with the world that it is indeed illuminated, and that darkness only appears whenever we close our eyes. And I see that light through music.

My love for music was bequeathed by both of my parents from an early age. Ever since my two brothers and I remember, my Dad would play music at home on the radio, as well as in the car. My mom would teach us new songs to sing every other day, and sing us to sleep. In their own way, both my parents gifted us with the virtue of appreciating all genres of music and picking up musical skills. By the time I was ten my mother had bought us a guitar, and a music teacher would come over twice a week. It wasn’t long before our home began filling up with all types of instruments: base-guitars, a Venezuelan Cuatro, a Bolivian Quena, and African Yambe, and many others; some we had bought, most had been given to us. I started picking up the different instruments I found scattered around my home, and learning to play them by my own accord (and with a huge amount of support from both my family and friends). 

I’m a Baha’i and being a Baha’i defines me in every aspect of my life.The Baha’i Faith is an Independent Religion whose main belief is that all Religions are indeed one, and that there is but one God. Service to mankind in the Baha’i Faith is a way of life, something one must always seek to do, in every aspect of his life. Both of my parents are Baha’is and I was raised amongst these principles. However, during my pre-teen years I underwent through a series of tribulations and difficulties that led me to move away from the Faith. 15 was a special age for me; it is the age of maturity according to Baha’u’llah, the Founder of the Baha’i Faith, and I began a thorough search for spirituality. At age 16 I had the privilege of visiting Haifa, Israel for my pilgrimage in the Baha’i World Centre. This experience gave me a fresh point of view of the principles I was raised to espouse, which led me to the rather awakening question: what have I been doing for the last 4 years? The more principles I’d pick to study and reflect upon, the more I became aware that they were exactly what I wished to see reflected in myself and others.

You see, most of the music out there was being used to tell the world how cool it was to use drugs, have “real” fun, and see women as nothing but an object of sexuality. And I would see the influence this music would make everywhere. In a classroom, at a party, in my neighborhood, etc. And every time I’d see this, it would be plain worrisome. I could feel this thing in me that was growing everyday more and more that would tell me that I needed to start doing something about it. What if someone were to decide to begin using music’s power to influence positively? How grand of a change would it make? Would I also see the influence this music would make everywhere? 

And thus I wrote my first song. And thus I had my first conversation with a stranger about music and the realization I had arrived to, concerning its magical powers and abilities to do good. Before I knew, my actions had taken me to the “belly of the whale” of a journey I still find myself walking through. Who were to know I now live off these two beautiful doings?

But Joseph Campbell was right about that whole “road of trials” thing. Who would have thought that the year of service I decided to give right after finishing high school was going to be so full of tests and trials (and yet a source of such unlimited inspiration)? Who would have thought that my lack of certain study skills would result in a series of difficulties while in college, making me feel very tempted to change careers and forget all about music, and ultimately getting me very close to quitting college once and for all in order to dedicate myself full-time to an old family business?

Ah, but who would have thought that it was during that same college period that I would meet the mother of my children? She, with whom I have built that which is my biggest source of inspiration and motivation: our family. I firmly believe that if not for the quality of a family I have a great part of my art would never have come to be; my family is the centerpiece of many of the goals I have achieved as a musician, and further yet as an aware human being.

And trials still come and go. But life has taught me two things: difficulties are but potential blessings, and God has gifted us all with the necessary tools to overcome them.

I feel identified with all of those who have decided to dedicate their time, and in some precious cases their lives, to serving others. Mostly because I feel we all have one main thing in common: we have all gotten to the realization that it is only through service that we can achieve real progress and a happiness that endures. And at times of crisis, it is through their stories as much as through their friendships that I find solace. I hope (and can only hope) for this book to become just this to anyone who might feel identified.