Some of you may know that I have spent most of my life dealing with the myriad types of cables that can be found in a recording studio. And over the years I have amassed quite a large and now mostly useless collection of all kinds of cables. Big, skinny, long, short, blue, green, red, twisty, curly. You name it. I have it. But I have come to a place where I am ready to let them go. I will keep a few to make sure I can still plug in a microphone if I need to at some point but I just don’t need all the cables I have.
So in the attempt to purge myself of these wormlike creatures I reached out to some of my friends who still have a need for them and asked if they might want any of them. Well a few days ago my good friend Joel came over and dug through the boxes and came up with a pile of XLR cables. We set them aside as they came out of the box and when we were done there was a messy pile on the ottoman and he looked at them and laughed a little bit and said how to some people that pile might look like a huge mess but to him it looked like the recording of a piano.
And that has stuck with me. It is not what the things before us actually are that matter, it is what they represent for us that make all the difference. It’s not the knife, its the meal that it will prepare and the feeling of nourishment that follows.
So now I find myself looking at things a little differently thanks to my time with Joel. I am trying to remember to see what is on the other side of the things that are in my life. And if there is no other side then they are not meant for me at this time and I am planning on letting them go. In an effort of minimalism I am trying to be sure that what is close by has a reason for being there other than the space it occupies.
Thanks Joel.