Problem People

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I had a problem yesterday, then I made it go away.

Someone with whom I sometimes work has me begging for things. He might not even know he's does this, but what's his is his and don't touch without permission. The fact that we work together would seem to give him incentive to cooperate, but he's suspicious and that gets in the way of so many things.

Yesterday, I needed something from him. A simple thing. He could easily share it. Situations reversed, I'd have sent it maybe even before he asked, but situations aren't reversed, so I asked — politely, carefully — if I could trouble him for it. Phrasing things, revising my thoughts so as not to offend, I realized I was begging. Ugh.

Neither needing the thing nor the begging was the problem. My problem was that I was growing angry. I wanted to complain about him to someone else. I wanted to tell him to go fuck off. My problem was choosing to make myself angry wishing things were other than they are with this guy.

That's a problem because I still need this one thing and need to work with him from time to time. If I go into each interaction angry and expecting a fight, I'm going to be a very unhappy boy.

Yesterday, anger and frustration welling up as I begged, I stopped and asked, "what other choices do I have?" Before anyone thinks I'm enlightened, what I yelled was, "what other fucking choice do I have working with this motherfucker?!" Still, that question served me well. What other choices did I have?

That's easy: I could let my anger go.

I hit send on the message, understanding that he's a difficult partner but I'm smart enough to work around that. A day later I still haven't heard back from him. I'll find another way to do the work and move him that much further out of my life, move myself that much farther from my problems.

Again, lest I seem enlightened, I wrote the line above thinking "move that motherfucker that much further out of my life." Luckily, motherfucker turns out to be one of my happy words. It's no problem.

"From This Place" by Pat Metheny

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I read Metheny's thoughts and then listened carefully. Seems a good song for our times.

Lyric by Alison Riley

From this place I cannot see
hardest dark
beneath rising seas.
From this place I don't believe
all my hopes
my sweet relief.
From here I say I cannot breathe.
Fear and hurt
again we bleed.
Unsafe, unsound, unclear to me
don't know how to be.
From this place I must proceed
trust in love, truth be my lead.
From here I will stand with thee
until hearts are truly free.

Pat Metheny writes:

On November 8, 2016, our country shamefully revealed a side of itself to the world that had mostly been hidden from view in its recent history. I wrote the piece From This Place in the early morning hours the next day as the results of the election became sadly evident.

There was only one musician who I could imagine singing it, and that was Meshell Ndegocello, one of the great artists of our time. With words by her partner Alison Riley, they captured exactly the feeling of that tragic moment while reaffirming the hope of better days ahead.

That said, as I approach 50 years of recording and performing, while looking back on all the music I have been involved in, I am hard-pressed to immediately recall in retrospect the political climate of the time that most of it was made in. And if I can, the memories of those particulars seem almost inconsequential to the music itself.

The currency that I have been given the privilege to trade in over these years put its primary value on the timeless and transcendent nature of what makes music music.

Music continually reveals itself to be ultimately and somewhat oddly impervious to the ups and downs of the transient details that may even have played a part in its birth. Music retains its nature and spirit even as the culture that forms it fades away, much like the dirt that creates the pressure around a diamond is long forgotten as the diamond shines on.

– Pat Metheny