Bringing the World to Life, part IV: Catching Up with Yourself

(Bringing the World to Life -- Part I :: Part II :: Part III :: Part IV)

"Catching up with yourself" is a little phrase or concept that I've been tossing around in my head for a few years now. It has nothing to do with "alone time," sitting down to enjoy a nice martini, and having conversations with the mirror or a powerless cell phone. That might be how you "catch up" with old friends. In this context, though, its totally different. I'll explain.

The basic premise has to do with the person you are today or at any moment (the part of you who does the "catching up") and the potential ideal, goal, or vision you strive to realize (the part of yourself you're "catching up" to).

Take, for instance, the craft of learning songs on guitar. First, you need a song to learn. The song usually finds you (as opposed to you finding the song) -- one day you simply find yourself mesmerized or transfixed or otherwise obsessed with a certain song. Whether it be something you heard by happenstance on the radio or a tune you've heard a 1,000 times -- the point is that it grabs you. It has planted a seed inside, and it wants to grow.

Now the time for action -- are you going to nurture this growth? Or will you let that little seedling dry up and shrivel into dust?

You take action. You begin to learn the song. For me, the first thing I do is go through the song type up the lyrics. Next, I'll do my best to figure out the chord progression. That is the easy part -- but the song is far from learned. I find that I need to, over the course of days (or weeks) play the song over and over and over and over. For your head to learn or memorize something is totally different from your hands or voice to learn or memroize something. But you push on -- you try your best -- and in time the song turns from little seedling into fairly healthy and self-sustaining plant.

And then, after a few weeks, you'll undoubtedly be drawn to other songs and repeat the process. Constantly and all the time, songs are coming into being and going out of being. And slowly, little by little, your ever-increasing grab-bag of songs swells.

In regard to "catching up with yourself" -- the self you're trying to catch up with (in the learning of any one song) is the you who can play the song in question absolutely perfect, with total passion and proficiency. This "self" represents you in your ideal, perfect, potential-fulfilling state. This "self" represents the goal that we -- for the most part -- seldom realize. But it is always there, and it calls us.

You see, in whatever song you're learning, the winds that propel your ship are only going to last so long. In time, they'll fade and dwindel, leaving that "direction" less and less appealing. The sentimental feelings will always remain, but the passion and intensity (you felt for a song of the past) will fall away... and be re-synthesized with another song that begs you to learn it.

So what is the point, you might ask? If there is little hope for acheiving perfection in every thing that we do, why bother even striving to do our best? The answer is that perfection -- this "catching up" with ideal and perfect self -- can in fact be realized... and each step along the way is crucial.

Say I want to learn "Santeria" by Sublime. I go through the above-mentioned process and pretty soon I have it down. It isn't perfect, but its tons further than I've ever been before. And after a few weeks, I'm really interested in learning "Digging a Ditch" by Dave Matthews. Same deal -- I don't get it quite perfect, but I'm further along than ever. Next, I'm all about "Angie" by the Rolling Stones. I cannot play like Keith or sing like Mick, but I'm tons closer to that ideal than I've ever been. And so on...

With each song in the process above, I find myself getting a little bit better. My hands get a little bit stronger. My fingers get a little more nimble. My voice gets a little more powerful. My confidence gets a bit more unwavering. On surely on the way. While perhaps none of the above songs allows me to break through into the realm of transcendental bliss, each is a necessary training exercise for the day when that may happen.

For it may be the next song I learn where all of the above skills and techniques come together and, in that beautiful moment, allow me to fully realize the person I am capable of being. This is "catching up with yourself." It is the Self that is seldom reachable but always there, just beyond our limits, calling us onward. It is the Self that asks us to dig down deep for that little bit of extra effort that takes us beyond the ordinary and into the extraordinary.

Its like racing the ghost in Mario Kart -- the imprinted record of your previous fastest race saved on Time Trial mode. Sometimes that ghost is damn-near impossible to compete with... and 95% of the time he probably smokes your ass. But it doesn't mean that you're not improving. For each race against the ghost -- if gone about with focus and without frustration -- is a chance for us to hone our skills that much more. And then comes the day when you set a new record -- and here, again, we have a literal example of "catching up with yourself."

So this entire concept, then, might be thought of as a metaphor (?) for becoming who we're ultimately capable of becoming as we go about our personal endeavors.

Recently, with getting up in the morning (to that mother fucking piece of shit alarm clock), I've taken up this "view" in a way that helps me through that first (and hardest) 15 minutes of the day. The second that alarm goes off -- the starting gun has been fired. The "race" in question is "a day in the life" of me. The "ghost" me (to use the Mario Kart example) -- the me I'm looking to catch up with -- is surely out of bed in an instant and doesn't hit snooze. He doesn't waste any time messing around. He knows the routine and delves right into it. No procrastination, no monkey business, no feeling sorry for himself. This is the person I'm competing against. This is the person that is driving me onward. This is the person that is challenging me to stay on pace with him. This is the person that is bringing the best out of me.

In all tasks -- he is there. The ideal of perfection. "He" is the "me" out of whom the light shines with no obstruction. If I only have the courage, the strength, the will, and the resolve -- he is the Self that I will catch up to.