With a Little Help from Jimi: Why Finding Your Purpose Matters

I started playing guitar when I was nine. My dad had this beautiful nylon-stringed Goya guitar from the 1960s, but he rarely ever played it. He also had this hand-made binder of old folk songs like “Down in the Valley”, and “Clementine”. Even “Mairzy Doats” and some Scandinavian songs. It’s funny because I remember my dad singing in locker rooms, and he had this guitar, but we really didn’t share music together. Anyway, I would play through the songs, but ultimately I didn’t stick to it, and by the time I was ten I had quit.

Fast forward a couple of years, I was listening to music from the late 60’s and early 70’s. My folks had all these records from different eras they never listened to, but included The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, even John Coltrane, The Sound of Music.) I would love to put on these records and listen, and read the liner notes in the record jackets. While at that point, I definitely had gotten the impulse to start playing again, it was really when I caught footage of Jimi Hendrix performing, that I knew I wanted an electric guitar.

Jimi Hendrix blew me away.

There was something about how Jimi’s body, mind, and spirit all fused together into one experience when he performed that was otherworldly and beautiful. It wasn’t just the wild feedback or the mesmerizing solos in his performance, there was this astounding level of soulful depth to his playing, and I always felt a kind of liberation from his sheer musicality - the instrument was an extension of his identity and emotional experience. There was an urgency, an immediacy of the moment that resonated with me, and in his writing, the lyrics spoke to something deep in me. And there is a huge emotional range in his songs: The Wind Cries Mary, Hear my Train a Comin, Purple Haze, Castles Made of Sand, My Friend, Dolly Dagger, Manic Depression, Crosstown Traffic, Remember - all of these songs were written by the same person, and you knew when you heard them that it could only be Jimi.

Jimi’s playing and songwriting tapped into many things I felt but couldn’t articulate; Jimi showed a twelve-year old kid like me that there was a way to be liberated through playing an instrument and writing music - you could make something beautiful, dissonant, sad, joyous; you could create something universal by tapping deep into yourself; you could express things unseen, and you could have a visceral experience that could actually transform your life. Jimi had a fully unique presence as an artist, and when he performed, there were moments where it seemed like he was living on another plane of consciousness and experience.

So yes, I was damn well going to buy a guitar and start playing again. I put a deposit down on a Fender Squier Bullet guitar with the little allowance money I had (In Manhattan on 48th street there used to be a whole bunch of guitar shops), and I asked my parents to pay for the rest! Luckily they agreed. I think years later they had mixed feelings about that decision, but I have never looked back.

There were many other influences to come, other directions, other musicians, other people in my life that shaped my experience. but my point in relaying this story was that at point in time I was connected on multiple levels of purpose. Deep within myself I had a clear reason to change something and that compelled me to take action - in my case it was to get that guitar, play my ass off, really learn the instrument and write music.

For me creating music and writing was and is liberation that fed my being, is aligned with my inner nature, and it has given me so much back. More than 30 years later, as a busy adult it's still true today, though has taken me some serious self-reflection at times to realize that this truth was right in front of me.

In the rush of responsibilities, life events, social feeds, and troubled times in the world, ironically we can easily lose sight of what makes life meaningful and beautiful for us. Sometimes we make conclusions that "it's just part of growing up" or for the dads out there, that being a father somehow means to sacrifice of the things that are personally meaningful to us. Somehow it's not "practical" to have things like this in our lives unless we make money from them. This is a natural conclusion given the pace (and cost) of life today. However, I would say that when I have been connected to the things that "feed" my inner nature, I am a better father, employee, partner and human overall to everyone around me. And when I buried the things that really moved me in the name of "responsibilities," I was much more likely to burn out, and/or become resentful of others in a way that was anything but "responsible."

Take a moment to turn off the phone, take a walk, and discover, or re-discover, what feeds your inner nature.

What is something that gives you a sense purpose and fulfillment?

What moves you to get up in the morning? What makes you happy to feel alive?

Do you have any childhood memories of things, people, or events that moved you to change?

If you could write about yourself in the third person, where yourself is that person, and they are someone that is truly happy and fulfilled, what would that look like?

How are you "showing up" for yourself?

Life is short, and even "Castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually."

Maybe, just maybe, there is something just beneath the surface of you, that could change your life if you are willing to take a look.

The Road Not Taken - by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.