Favorite Places, Songs, Sayings, Authors, Books, Hobbies etc

Places 
Music 
Writings, Books, Sayings, Authors etc 
Hobbies, Activities etc 

Places I like: 
Colorado, lush mountain valleys, high mountain peaks, RMNP, back country mountain roads with big rocks in the way, shaded forest trails in the summer and sunny mountain snow trails in the winter 

Music that I like: (including, but not necessarily limited to Songs, Albums, Bands, Singers/Songwriters and other Musical Artists, Groups etc)

First off, I'm not really limited to any particular style of music. There are things that are important to me as far as enjoying music though. The first is melody. It's not that I don't at all appreciate music or musical styles that aren't very melodic, but just that I don't enjoy listening to them as much as others that are. 
    Next is lyrical content. I don't necessarily have to agree with the exact wording of the song, but I certainly do enjoy more so the ones that I can relate with. To the degree to which I can understand the message of the song, I can usually find a way to enjoy it as long as I enjoy the musical parts enough. To the degree to which I can actually relate with the message, it makes it that much easier for me to enjoy it. To the degree to which I actually agree with the message, these are usually my favorites. 
    Don't let my list below fool you though. There may indeed be songs/albums/groups that show up here simply due to the fact that their musical quality is so much to my liking that I overlook the fact that their lyrics push them out of my normal enjoyment zone (even some that go very far outside of it like with Evanescence, the Christian rock band). 

New Beginning by Tracy Chapman
Evanescence 


"New Beginning" by Tracy Chapman. This whole album has basically become like the theme for my life over the past few years since I first heard it. Though one of the songs ("Give Me One Reason") on it became a big hit on the pop charts when it first came out way back in 1995, I never really liked that particular song very much and so I never even heard the rest of the album until many years later. 
    One night in the car a few years ago on the way home to Minnesota (where we used to live) from a trip to Colorado (where we live now), my partner Karen played the song "The Rape Of The World". That song was so moving that I wondered if I could ever appreciate hearing another song again... or if I'd ever be able to write songs anymore either (Yes, I sing, play guitar and write songs too... someday I'll get back to it and write some songs that express where I'm actually at these days. Most of what I've written is either from my high school days or from my more recent, yet oh so long ago religious days). 
    Now, I don't totally agree with every thought in every song on the album, and I would definitely choose different words to express some of the thoughts, motivations, sentiment and attitude of even some of the things I do agree with, but listening to the rest of that album that night changed my life for ever. Up to that point, I honestly didn't know whether or not I'd ever meet or even hear of anyone else that really understood the depth of the longing in me to be open, honest and real and my desire to live with an attitude of love and compassion for other people and for health and healing in all of the ways that these songs deal with. In them, she reveals her strengths and her weaknesses as a person. This is very inviting to me. Though her vision was not new to me (it had already been my vision as well for years), hearing it from another perspective, from another real, live, breathing, thinking individual human was indeed encouraging and inspiring to the point that it gave me (and still is a source of) a renewed sense of hope for the human species. 
    I've never actually met her, but from her songs, it seems to me like she is smart, intelligent (and yes, those can be too different things depending on one's use of the words), wise, caring, kind, gentle and patient. She also seems like she's passionate about our natural environment and our social and personal lifestyles. All this and she has the ability to put it all into words and, together with music, writes songs to express it and get a message across even to someone who's already so sure of where he's at with all that and still manage to invite me to dig deeper for all I can find within my self to give to others and stretch and reach further for all I can get out of this life in terms of living the real life as an eyes-wide-open, level-headed, fully-alive, compassionate, communal homo sapien. I thank you Tracy, and I will never forget you as long as I am in control of my memories. 
    At this point in my life, the song that best expresses why I like the album so much is the song, "At This Point In My Life", especially the words, "At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered...as if the search to live honestly is all that anyone needs no matter if you find it...". In fact, I'm adopting that as my most favorite saying for now (20030720_1051). It's not an absolutist declaration on my part. It's just where I'm at and it expresses what I think about life. 
    Not being able to ever really reach one's idealistic goals is no reason to give them up. I think that it is more healthy to acknowledge how idealistic they really are and move on in search of them with complete confidence in one's own value as a person regardless of whether or not they'll ever "make it" or whether or not they'll ever "arrive". Having idealistic goals is just what it is. We imagine how something could be better and we go towards it. It's only when we ignore or deny how idealistic it is that we can get into trouble and fall into the traps of either self-hatred or self-worship. As long as we continue in critical thinking and compassion for self and others, neither extreme should ever really pose much of a threat to our own world view, our attitude or lifestyle. 
    So, I'll say it... At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered...as if the search to live honestly is all that anyone needs no matter if you find it. For me, it's not the "getting there" that determines whether or not it is worth the journey, but the desire to go there and the commitment to continue going there. It's not about some kooky spiritual or philosophical thing either. If you suspect that, or if you think you detect it here in my writing, please bring it to my attention. The only intent that I have in writing this is to express my desires in life, not to try to establish some new absolute "right/wrong" system of morality or philosophy, and certainly not to tell others what they should or should not do. All I do is tell my story, invite others to listen to it and consider it in the light of their own experience, let me know what they think, consider theirs in light of mine and share theirs with me as well. For the most part, that's what I see and hear Tracy doing with this album and that's what I am intending to do with this website...and with my life. So, what do you think? 
  (Entry added 20030720)

Evanescence 
 [NOTE=20031202: I added this entry before I found out that this is a Christian Rock Band. The fact that I do not want to be involved with anything blatantly religious of any sort obviously should not make a difference with respect to how much I like how they sound though (I bought their album, Fallen). So I have left the entry in tact and unedited from it's original entry] 
Wow! I'm almost speechless. I don't really know what to say. I'm 32 and I've heard lots of songs from lots of musical artists and groups of many various and extremely different kinds of musical style. I'm even a musical artist (singer/song writer) my self. Yet, as I said to my partner, Karen tonight while watching them perform one of their songs on the American Music Awards, "I don't think I've ever been as turned on by a musical artist or group as I am by them". It was so intense. 
 [Entry added apx. 2003111?] 


Writings, Books, Sayings, Authors etc: 
"...I'd like to live... as if the search to live honestly is all that anyone needs no matter if you find it..." Tracy Chapman, 1995

Hobbies, Activities etc: 

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