Briancoe.net

The Shock

I couldn’t believe it when it happened. My guitar fell from the bed to the floor and… SNAP! The headstock, as you can see in the picture, broke in half like a match stick. What the..?

That’s all I could think. I couldn’t even get mad because this was so shocking that it was beyond anger, it was jaw-dropping disbelief. I just thought WOAH, what’s going on? I had no answer.

After a few hours of absorbing what happened I started to think of the meaning behind it. I’m the kind of person who believes there’s a higher reason for things like this to happen, so I needed to know why.

The Notebook Entry

My notebooks are a place for me to reflect on the meaning of things in my life. For this incident, I wanted to know how a broken guitar could be good for me. There had to be a higher reason, there always is. Somehow this event was a catalyst for personal growth, so I reflected in my journal last night about what this all meant and here’s what I wrote:

Guitar playing means nothing

Singing means nothing

Making a statement means nothing

Overcoming suffering means nothing

Writing songs means nothing

Being good means nothing

Having fun means nothing

Changing the world means nothing

Wikileaks means nothing

Blog posts mean nothing

Facebook means nothing

The Meaning

My thought process in interpreting the meaning of this began by looking at this event as obviously being connected to my relationship to the guitar or music. I know my attitude with music lately has been a little impatient, even a little frustrating, and because I know these feelings are not coming from the highest part of me I know that my broken guitar has to do with healing those feelings. There is clearly a message here for me to let go of the guitar, or to let go of music.

You can see in my notebook entry that this list of things, which are things I feel to be important and valuable, I was telling myself meant nothing. I remembered that more important than achieving all of my goals is to let go of them. Let go of guitar playing, let go of singing, let go of music. Let go of all of it so I can detach from expecting results. When I expect certain results I get frustrated if they don’t manifest, sometimes subtly, sometimes not.

I remembered that when things mean nothing, they lose their hold over us. We just let them happen because we are not personally attached to them in any way and we are not expecting a certain outcome. If we learn to have a higher relationship of detachment to that which we most desire, as well as to that which we least desire, we allow deeper states of self expression to manifest. We can create for the sake of creation, not for the sake of some goal.

I guess I am getting a pretty strong message to let go of even my most important goals, and of expecting certain outcomes so that I can free myself from pressure to succeed and discover deeper levels of being. Good thing I have another guitar so I can continue with making music, but note to God – I got the message, no need for another.