ocean

My friend Matt introduced me to this band called John Butler Trio. I always knew he loved them, and I just never checked them out. Last night we all drove up to the hot pots, so we had plenty of driving, and I got a good dose of this band. They are classified as an "ecelctic/jam band" according to wikipedia. That's a pretty good term for them because their music has a lot of different influences, which adds to their versatility. John Butler is pretty much one of the most amazing musicians I have heard. I'm sad it took me this long to realize this.



There is an instrumental piece that John Butler plays called Ocean. Basically he started writing a song about how everyone is connected, but words eluded him, and this is what came out. It's brilliant; it's epic; it's moving; there really is no adjective to describe how impactful this song is. It's about life and love and birth and death and people and connections and relationships and empathy... It makes me realize how big life is beyond my small scope that I see through. It makes me want to change something, create something, be something. It makes me realize that my small part in the world is enough. There is a greater force in this world (which would be God for me) that takes our small actions and magnifies them to affect so many people. We are in a beautiful entangelment of interdependence with one another.



And life is just so beautiful.



Great band. Great song. Great message.



Thank you, Matthew Gress for opening my ears.



New Love:

Check it out.

I'm dying for a Renaissance!

I realized that I kind of hate Hum 201. For non-BYU people that's Western Humanities from Early Minoan Civilization until the Early Renaissance.

I enjoyed the Classical period, but other than that, I don't particularly enjoy anything. And I daresay that I don't feel there was a lot of enlightenment at this time in the art department. It's kind of...ugly. And not abstract, I don't get it ugly, but just ugly.

I think I just hate devout, religious art (which is the majority of art at this time) because I feel the world was farthest from religion at this time. (I do love a good dose of irony.) Everything is just so gaudy and show-y. There are some major architectural feats with cathedrals and what not, but I'm not really interested in architecture. I'm all about practicality most of the time.

I took the second half of Humanities before the first, which was a mistake because from the Renaissance and on, everything is just so beautiful and innovative.

Please get me out of the Dark Ages. Soon.