Musical purpose & happiness

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible." -Albert Einstein

Like Albert Einstein, I feel that happiness is not the purpose of life. Instead, my purpose lies with the world--in making and learning things, and in so doing satisfying some primal urge to live and to be fully. 

Perhaps it is egoism that drives me to this. I feel profoundly that I have something to say. In creation, specifically musical performance, I truly feel like my voice is heard. It's me playing and all I have is myself to make a statement with. 

I want, right before I die, to look back and know that I lived. And I want to know that I made people high--high on music, high on beauty--not because I think it will make me happy, but because I think it's the best thing I can possibly do with my time.


I feel there is great good in communication of life's experiences. To make the internal the external is to understand the internal well enough to externalize it--to understand yourself well enough to tell others of your feelings. 


The musical experience, in many ways, is an empathetic one: music conveys emotions. It's character, its motion, rises and falls, dynamics, all communicate sensations. And, these sensations are not random; with a well-enough written composition, one can grow and learn of life and beauty. Thus, communicating the most intimate of life's nuances is an empathetic experience.


Listen and learn.