The Path to Eudaimonia is Paved with Detours and Joy

  "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service acted and behold, service was joy."   

~ Rabindranath Tagore

          

  I dream of joy. My ancestors visit me and we reconcile past unspoken differences. I live in the spatial elements and fly above. What are your good dreams? Where is that disconnection when we awaken, and why?

  I've often said that if every person followed the path of learning they wished and performed the job, avocation, or mission they were moved to -- without influence of family business or hierarchy of pay or education or value -- imagine how much more contented and productive of a society we would have become? 

  I'm on my own path to eudaimonia. I've taken several stops along the way. First, eudaimonia is one of those lovely Greek words for love and value that describes a type of self-contented peace that is borne of presence, a good day's work, and responsibility of only those things within one's own realm. As the Inuit have so many words for snow, sensing winter textures and colors that the rest of the world cannot, and the Himba tribe in northern Namibia differentiates dozens more shades of green than any other peoples, so attaining contentment in alignment with one's values comes out in the language of the Greek people.

   So, my stops along the way... I'm a creative. I love to create just about anything and feed and heal that way, too. I am a creative problem solver. The path of my life, however, has taken me mostly to visual arts, performing arts, culinary arts, teaching arts, and composing. I've played in major symphonies and music I've written is on major labels.

   Next, I've noticed that I am comfortable on stage alone. I also love being part of a great big orchestral machine, especially something like the Metropolitan Opera. I enjoy creating atmospheres when I compose. I also really like to smell and taste and
take apart food, and to cook it from my mind, to pair wine with it. But none of these things alone make me happy for work. I don't want other work, per se, I need this creation. Still, I don't like being a cog in a machine putting out food (even great food) or music (even great music) without a connection to the consumer.

   Over the years I've connected with people through music and coaching when travelling to perform and give clinics across the country. More and more people received guidance about how to remove their barriers while on stage, whether to stage performance or to free-improvisation. I thought I had it! I am a Peak Performance Coach (I changed my name from a joyful performance coach) and I remove barriers to joy!

  Here's the thing. Something still wasn't ticking. I do remove barriers to joy. But what really resonates with me? Well, I am a Joyful Performance Coach, even if that doesn't fit a mold. What do I really, really value the most?

   When people hear my music, I don't care if I am playing it or someone else is. I don't want to be on a pedestal. What I love is experiencing audience tears, smiles, eyes closed in bliss, awe. I create atmospheres, and I love to have people be moved to feel in those atmospheres.

   When people hear me play, I don't care that it's me, I want to experience them being moved by the music, I want them to feel. When I teach, I want to remove barriers so my students can feel. When people learn a few parameters to feel safe when free-improvising, they learn to be free and secure.

   That is what I do. That is my purpose. That is my passion. My service as a Coach, as a Servant to Humanity, is that I help people to feel, and I'm darned good at it. I help people have epiphanies. 

   That service is my joy. In that joy, I may fly.