Raison d'être

Or something like it!

I love the French term, Raison d’être, and I’ve been pondering it lately. Reason for being. What we’re here for, our purpose, what drives us, motivates us, makes life rich. It’s also the name of a really cool BUZZCOCKS song.

I love writing and recording and publishing new original songs. Every step of it feels right to me, and though sometimes it can be hard and challenging, it can also be sometimes easy and fun and downright exhilarating.

Is it my raison d’être? I don’t know, it does feel that way lately, at least in part. I could just as easily say however that my raison d’être is to play with the cats. One leads a diverse life, does one not? I mean we are SO many things. I love my family and my job and my friends and my (currently hibernating) band, ALL of these things are my raison d’être, but when a new song possesses me, and compels me to write it and produce it, something about that, makes me feel so very alive and present.

The song I published yesterday, fell into the easy-and-fun-to-make category, I mean it just flowed. I noticed when it was all done, that I couldn’t really remember the first moment when I thought of the hook, the title, the point of the song, and started creating the parts around it. It was about a week-long journey, mostly in the very early morning hours, with a very clear end-point, that is, I knew when it was finished, there wasn’t any doubt about it and I shared it right away.

I remember when I was very young, at Whittier School in Berkeley (I think they’ve changed the name of it now), we had a guest art teacher come through, whose name I’ve long forgotten. He told us of a tradition of subtractive sculpting, in which an artist takes a block of wood or other material, and removes the parts that don’t belong, following their artistic instinct, to reveal a piece that is already there. This idea fascinated and stayed with me. My first reaction was doubt, like, what nonsense, that’s a block of wood, you’re changing it, making it what you want to make. But over time, lots of time, the metaphor has become stronger for me, just based on experience. It’s the “song writing itself” phenomenon, and it’s such a treat when it happens.

Part of the ritual of releasing songs on Berkeley Cat, is posting at our website! And so,

https://berkeleycatrecords.com/eric-din-in-another-life-out-now-on-berkeley-cat-records/

Who has websites anymore? It seems so 2005. Back when Google provided useful search results and MP3 was obliterating the dominant paradigm. Oh MY but we were born in interesting times!

Signing off for today, affectionately, in this life and not another,

Eric Din