I remember being around 20 years old, in the town I grew up in: Visalia, CA. It's not a very big place. It's not very small either. It's between those two things: small enough for rumors to bother you and big enough for it to take 25 minutes to get from one end to the other—I'm sure information was faster than the car there, even before the advent of the internet.

I fell in love for the first time in Visalia. It was love at first sight for me—but ended up not working out. I think back on it, and I know all the places where I made errors. This is important to me, because I feel I have room to learn from my mistakes. Lauren is happily married now and has children, and I am thrilled for her, deeply and truly. She is a good person.

What's really painful is making mistakes and realizing you have made them shortly after making them. This was the case between Lauren and I. However, we are not defined by another person.

While we may be defined by our decisions, partially—ultimately, I feel that we just are. We exist I mean. Nothing beyond that. To put it a better way, we all come in and out of each others lives, changing one another, so that we may continue on: all the additional perceptions attached to it, are human notions.

If we look at ourselves as purely animals, we just exist, accumulating life experience in the form of memories. We own our past. It is involuntary in so much as it pertains to it being deposited in the banks of chaos that are our minds. Beyond that, we can chose to own it as a verb, which is more along the lines of accepting it, and not perceiving it as a burden. Perhaps like cargo floating on a rive in tandem with us: effortless.

I am fascinated by the thought of how much more malleable I was in my younger years. I could love, fall out of love, and love again rather quickly. If I were to be honest with myself, I have become far more guarded with my heart over the years.

19 year-old me fell in and out of love with Lauren, was at the forefront of his love of music, had parents who did not encourage the pursuit of music as a career, so he felt as if he needed to find his own footing and encouragement in other places—even if that was just in the daydreams of his own head.

He worked two jobs: one during the day and one during the night. He practiced guitar in between. He kept trying to write songs, but found it extremely difficult to like what he wrote—to genuinely love what was being made by his own creativity.

The first song I ever tried to write was about a young girl who tried to commit suicide off of a freeway overpass. It was a good song—I couldn't see that though, at the time. So I hid it away, and never shared it.

I remember discovering Dave Matthews Band for the first time, and learning all of his songs. I remember meeting a young girl named Robin that same summer. We loved each other in a window of time, before she moved away. In that window of time, I began reading a book that I very much enjoyed called " The Tao of Pooh". I was 20 years old.

It was a very beautiful interpretation of Taoism, in so far as Winnie the Pooh being a prime example of an individual who lives the Tao. I gave it to Robin when she moved to San Jose, along with a few Calvin and Hobbs comic strip books.

In hindsight, I was more malleable in those days—which isn't to say that I am not that way now—I'm just beginning to wonder if I was living more "the way" at that time, than I am now.

Robin was no possession to me. She enriched my life. Hopefully, I enriched hers as well. We keep contact with one another, and I am friends with her whole family. I love them all dearly.

I continued to play guitar. I was also very fascinated with Chess. I played a gentleman named Jason McKaughan at his house in downtown Visalia. He was an amazing musician himself. He was also studying philosophy at California State University Fresno. We would play chess together. He would introduce me to movies and new music that I had never heard of such as Michael Hedges or Charlie Hunter or "The Matrix" or "Deconstructing Harry"—to be honest they are too numerous to name.

I began to learn how to play Michael Hedges and became obsessed with him, much as I did Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan before that. However, I remember showing up to his house to play chess on one day in particular and he had something fun to share with me.

He popped on a song called "Comfortable". He asked me to name who it was. I listened. "Comfortable" displayed amazing songwriting. The lyrics were incredible. His voice had a masculine baritone quality that was very beautiful and entrancing to listen to. I listened the whole way through without saying a word.

When the song was completed, I said "Jacob Dylan?" I knew this wasn't the answer, but it was the closest thing I could think of that matched the timber of his voice. His answer was, "this is Matt Mangano's roommate at Berklee School of Music. His name is John Mayer." I was hooked.

Matt Mangano was also a Visalia native who had just moved to Boston to attend Berklee School of Music. He was there to study recording and sound engineering. He recorded John in the dorm room they shared together. The recordings I was listening to, were those recordings. Matt brought them back with him on summer break and told Jason, this is my roommate John Mayer. Remember his name. He's going to be a big star. Jason was skeptical that this was the case, but there was no denying his talent.

He shared numerous stories with me regarding Matt and John. I began to follow John on my parents old AOL dial up computer. The World Wide Web had just started. John was present on a website he created at johnmayer.com and posted music he wrote to another website called MP3.com. He had left Berklee School of Music after one year there, and moved down to Georgia. I enthusiastically watched and supported his very quick rise to fame.

There were no crowd sourcing platforms at this time. This was all between the years of 1999-2000. Jason McKaughan would go and visit Matt and John at their place in Atlanta, Georgia. John took Jason out to go sight seeing around the South, historical landmarks and so forth. He brought back stories. They were fun to listen to. I shared John's music with people I thought would like it.

When he started to be able to afford to tour, I went out and supported his first tour solo acoustic. He opened for Glen Phillips from Toad the Wet Sprocket. He played a wonderful set over a bunch of people screaming over the top of his music, talking loudly, waiting for Glen to take the stage. He didn't appear bothered by it, but having been there myself, I'm sure it was no fun to have only a quarter of the room listening to you.

Shortly there after, he was signed to Aware Records, which is what that CD up yonder is. He went on tour with a band. I caught him three times during that tour. Once in San Francisco, once in Los Angeles at The Roxy, and lastly at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. He came out after every show and would chat with all of us that attended. John is a very funny guy, and was always a pleasure to talk to. I emailed him once to ask him how to play one of his songs, and he was kind enough to provide the info I was after.

I look back on my life, and I see that around the years of 19 to 21 is when I woke up to art and how much I loved it. I have tried to avidly support local and independent music as I find it. I suppose John was the first musician to not be spoon fed to me by a major label? I had never thought of this before in plain terms, but I suppose that is the truth.

My whole life, I have been living the way. I am sure you can say the same. That's what "Tao" translates to: "The Way." We are all living the mystery is what I mean. Allow me to explain myself a little better—I don't want this to be a Chinese Finger Trap.

I started reading "Change You Thoughts, Change Your Life" by Wayne Dyer. In a nut shell, it is the "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu, but with his interpretation of each concise chapter of "Tao Te Ching" which often reads a bit like poetry. I'll give you an example:

第一章

道可道

非常道

名可名

非常名

無名天地之始

有名萬物之母

故常無欲

以觀其妙

常有欲

以觀其徼

此兩者

同出而異名

同謂之玄

玄之又玄

眾妙之門

Pretty interesting, right? I kid.

Chapter 1

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao

The name that can be named is not the eternal name

The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth

The named is the mother of myriad things

Thus, constantly with

out desire, one observes its essence

Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations

These two emerge together but differ in name

The unity is said to be the mystery

Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders

OR alternately it could be translated to this, as we are working from Chinese characters that are no longer in use. This alone is fascinating to me as language allows for so many different interpretations, especially when it has been translated from a translation. This text is nearly 2,500 years old. As far as I know, these both have been translated directly from the original Chinese characters listed above.

The Tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named

is not the eternal name.

The Tao is both named and nameless.

As nameless it is the origin of all things;

as named it is the mother of 10,000 things.

Ever desire less, one can see the mystery;

ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations.

And the mystery itself is the doorway

to all understanding.

This is paradoxical thinking—and very thick. It has the viscosity of maple syrup. Yet, it is also simple. We just are. That is Tao, yet by my reducing things in simplicity of those words of explanation to you, another human being, that is not Tao. But I digress. This is what I was getting at in the words of Wayne Dyer:

.".. enjoy the mystery."

"Let the world unfold without always trying to figure it all out. Let relationships just be, for example, since everything is just going to stretch out in Divine Order. Don't try so hard to make something work—simply allow. Don't always toil at trying to understand your mate, your children, your parents, your boss, or anyone else, because the Tao is working at all times. When expectations are shattered, practicing allowing that to be the way it is. Relax, let go, allow, and recognize that some of your desires are about how you think your world should be, rather than how it is in the moment. Become an astute observer... judge less and listen more. Take time to open your mind to the fascinating mystery and uncertainty that we all experience."

"Practice letting go of always naming and labeling."

There are many things to be interpreted from these very concise lines from the first chapter of "Tao Te Ching." Similarly, there are many things to be interpreted from a lifetime already lived. Beyond that, is living. It's the present moment.

I've enjoyed sharing a bit of my past with you. I've also enjoyed thinking back to a version of myself that is 20 years old. I find it fascinating that I have ran along a twenty year cycle, a continuum, in which it has begun with me reading an interpretation of Tao Te Ching (but with Winnie the Pooh bonus round), and led me back to me reading an interpretation once again, and me arriving at my own paradoxical understanding. In the process of writing that last sentence, I also just realized that putting exclamation points on things can be construed as shouting. However, most of the time, it just means enthusiasm, nowadays.

What a mystery!

- Mike

2000px-California_State_University,_Fullerton_seal.svg.png

I transferred to California State University Fullerton as a music major in 2002. It was one of the most important experiences of my life. It taught me the value of balancing feeling and logic to decide what is best for my future. This is something that I realized, just recently. Let me explain.

I transferred to Cal State Fullerton as a Classical Guitar Major. While it was definitely something that I had fun doing, I had an unsettled feeling that my interest in classical guitar was only true up to a certain point. I was interested in the techniques that it was teaching me: voice leading, harmony, fingerpicking, etc.—but I was unsure that a life devotion to it would satiate my desires in the future.

I spent a lot of time studying classical guitar, because one of my heroes at the time, Michael Hedges, was a classical guitar major and used many of his studies to shape his own unique style of music. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, he was a brilliant composer who used alternate tunings on his guitar almost exclusively. He was a steel string acoustic guitar player and also played harp guitar and a number of other very unique instruments to compose music. He developed his own methodology behind playing guitar with fingerpicking that included using fingers to mute unused strings to limit sympathetic vibrations due to the overtone series; this would allow for his music to resonate with pristine and exact nature and purpose. He also would swap out string gauge sizes on his guitar (often using high bass strings) in order to allow him a larger and lower palate of tunings for his compositions. For musicians interested in exploring his technique, look up a book called "Rhythm Sonority Silence." He crushed my skull as a musician and to this day, I search for my own unique voice and my own unique contributions to art because of people like him.

My desire in 2001 was to transfer to Berklee School of Music in Boston because they offered a commercial music program. I had put a deposit down on a dorm room with what money I could scrape up from working my day job. While it wasn't a tremendous deposit that I put down, it was non-refundable and it was a lot of money to me. My mind was set on getting the best musical education that a person could receive. I was anxious. As the deadline approached for me to enroll at Berklee, my parents asked if they could take me out to dinner at Ryan's Place, which was a restaurant that the two of them frequented a lot. I was expecting for them to glow with their approval for my choice of visiting Berklee and to be proud of my decision to try and receive the education I desired: this couldn't have been farther from the truth.

My mom and dad sat down with me and explained life to me in the form of debt. They took a piece of paper and added up all the expenses I would accrue from a two year education at that school (which was low balling it). I probably would have spent more than two years there. What they showed me is that I would be over $100,000 in debt from attending there for two years. They asked me: is it wise for a musician to embark into the world with that much overhead? I was absolutely crushed by what they were trying to show me. I was around 22 at the time and wanted so badly to fight the logic that they were trying to display to me when it came to my desires. My mother and father offered me an alternative: use my father's veteran grant to pay for an education at a UC or CSU within the state of California.

As much as I didn't want to listen, I knew deep down, they had a point. I began searching around for UC's and CSU's with great music programs. The three best that I could find were UCLA, California State University Northridge, and California State University Fullerton. The crux of education offered at these universities revolved around the pedantic methods used to teach music. You are pigeon holed into an education that is derived from either classical music or jazz. While I deeply loved both of these styles of music, neither one of them was where my heart truly lived. However, I followed their advice and continued to narrow down a choice based on what I had available to me by following their advice. I visited various colleges and universities including Berkley and San Francisco State University, but neither felt like home. It wasn't until I visited California State University Fullerton that something resonated within me. It felt like home. That's the best way I can describe it.

At any rate, my choices there were as follows: classical guitar or jazz. I decided on classical guitar and went to audition in front of a panel of instructors in order to be accepted into the music department as a transfer student, with my general education completed. While I did a stellar job of passing my exams to forgo further music theory instruction, I found that the audition was the most critical part in fully understanding the new direction I was heading in, and it was one of the most unnerving experiences of my life. I remember complaining about how cold the room was. In actuality, I was so nervous that my hands were paralyzed, sweaty, and unable to perform their muscle memory dictation. I butchered every single etude that I attempted to play for the committee. It was a humbling outcome to an experience I had spent so much time preparing for. They accepted me into the department of classical guitar and music, but it was as a freshman level player. I was a junior level student.

This bruised my ego a great deal. However, one of the people on the panel approached me afterwards. He was the head of the jazz department at the school. He asked if I would be interested in auditioning for the Commercial Music Department at the school. It was brand new curriculum that he was trying to build and thought that I might be a good fit. I jumped at this opportunity to redeem myself. I showed up at his office for the appointment that he assigned to me, I auditioned, and was accepted into the department as a junior transfer student. However, this was only the beginning to truly finding where my heart and head was taking me.

I spent that first semester working harder than I ever thought I was capable. While I was a decent music reader, I found that I had to work ten times harder than the average student because my sight reading abilities were akin to using the Rosetta Stone to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs (especially when it came to funk charts).

I would spend hours every night trying to interpret music charts for the big band. I would transcribe jazz solos for my jazz composition class. I would spend hours working in the choir room to brush up on performances we were preparing for in the choir ensemble. I would study the ancient origins of secular and sacred music from my text book (something I now appreciate). Each of these performance classes were worth one unit and I was trying to carry somewhere between 18 to 21 units that semester. As the end of the school term drew near, I was feeling miserable and I disliked all my studies in music aside from one glimmer of light: I was starting to write my own songs.

I began a slow transition towards finding comfort and solace in creating my own music. It began to consume my time and I found myself disinterested in pursuing the life of a guitarist in a commercial music program at a university. The first song that I ever wrote, that I finished, was was addressed to my older brother called, "Between Me and You." It was a great song and definitely carried flavors of Jason Mraz, who I was listening to a lot of at the time. I was proud of it and it felt good to get out a lot of the frustration I was feeling towards my lack of good communication skills with my brother at the time.

By the time my first semester drew to a close at Cal State Fullerton, I realized what I truly wanted from life: to be a songwriter. I stopped working so hard in a lot of my music classes and began to explore all of the qualities that make good songwriters. I checked out books from the library and began to read incessantly, as I used to do, before becoming a music major. I studied my shortcomings and found that where I was weakest, was in my lyric writing. Suddenly, I had this moment of clarity: English Major. It was the best decision I ever made in my life. All of my teachers were outstanding to me, but there was one particular instructor I had that changed my life forever.

While I wasn't a poet, I did write songs incessantly and asked this particular instructor if she would be so kind as to let me submit my songs for her classes rather than poetry. She was excited by this proposition and gladly accepted the challenge. She was relentlessly hard on me and picked apart every single thing that I ever wrote. She kept saying things to me like, "don't tell me, show me." I didn't get it. I had to have submitted around 8 to 10 songs before we finally arrived at one song that she deemed worthy of me understanding what she was trying to teach me. It carried these qualities: it was a memory from my own life, a character I created. It was told from the perspective of a woman that used to visit me at a grocery store I worked at—and I was very detail oriented with my memories. It was a song called "The Grocery Store Clerk."

I played the song for the class—and they went bananas. That was all the encouragement I ever needed.

To this day I use her methods to construct lyrics:

• Be as specific as possible with details regarding your own life and with anything that you write about. You would think that people relate more to general details, but it is in fact, the very opposite.. The more specific you are about every little detail, the more people will find honesty and truth in it, which is very important. This makes good art. I use this method in nearly every song that I write. Even if it is a work of fiction (song, prose, or poetry), I try to inject a bit of my own life into it.

• Don't tell people what is happening. Show people what is happening. This was a harder concept for me to grasp, initially. What she meant by this: there are two different ways you can show people an idea. You can tell them what you are feeling, which doesn't do anything for the audience. It doesn't resonate. Or, you can use senses to show someone what you are wanting them to experience. By engaging people's sensory perception, you help to bring what you are trying to convey, to life.

I am very thankful to her for teaching me such wonderful techniques. I use it in everything that I write. Sometimes, I find that people read into things too much, however, that is out my hands entirely. I know what I intend when I commit to words, and I feel like I need to work harder when people misinterpret what I set out to be the point of a song. It's disappointing to me and I feel that I missed the mark and need to do better next time.

Everything that I write carries positivity to it as that is the main motivation behind good art: to create something beautiful out of the worst that life throws at me—and in equal measure, all the good vibes that come my way as well. In this regard, every song I create is like a child that I bring into the world, in the hopes that they grow their own legs of truth, and live longer than my body ever will.