Letting Go of the Known

“Discipline must be without control, without suppression, without any form of fear…It is not discipline first and then freedom; freedom is at the very beginning, not at the end.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

 

Obviously, as human beings, we are very social creatures. In fact, we tend to underestimate just how large of an extent by which our day-to-day life is influenced by the people around us. Since the beginning of our lives, much of our thought patterns, habits, and beliefs, were drummed into us by our parents, peers, school, and society at large.

The philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti called this concept “the known”. As he explained, “The known is knowledge — the knowledge which I have accumulated about myself, the knowledge which I have gathered through experience during my lifetime, the knowledge which I have invited, which has become my habit, the very structure of my being.”

“As long as the mind holds on to the known,” he said. “It will always be frightened of the unknown.”

Of course, to some extent, holding on to the known serves as a survival mechanism. Because especially when we were little, we could literally die if we were ostracized from our group.

But as with most of our natural instincts, we must be able to recognize when it’s not serving us.

You probably already know very well that merely conforming to social conventions could keep us away from doing anything daring and unique — or really, anything worthwhile in our lives. We live by other people’s definitions of success and failure. We reject ourselves and everything that makes us a unique individual, so that we don’t have to feel the excruciating pain of being rejected by other people.

This is so true even on a mundane level. To give you simple example, at some point, you’ve probably found yourself not liking a certain song or film just because of how it might come across to other people — even though you know it touched your heart in some way. Maybe you like a Marilyn Manson song, but you’re worried that other people would be terrified by his scary stage persona. Or maybe you’re still into the Twilight films, but you don’t want other people to think that you’re out of touch (and have horrible taste in movies).

And in our digital age where most of what we do are tethered to views, likes, and shares, this instinct to conform to the known can be very worrying, not only for ourselves, but for the generations to come.

But what if we can free ourselves from the known and venture into the unknown? And what happens once we do?

For John Frusciante, the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it has always been his calling to be a musician. And so, being told by his music teacher that he wasn’t a good guitar player was the worst experience that he had ever gone through as a teenager. In that particular incident, it was only because he couldn’t play a blues scale fast enough, like, say, Steve Vai, who was the teacher’s definition of “great”.

He had a handful of similar experiences in his music education, as he had certain teachers who ridiculed his playing style and even the music he loved listening to.

A teacher’s hurtful words can leave a lasting scar in a student. Such words certainly left their scar in John, as he was struggling to find himself as a musician. As he explained in an endearing interview on his fellow bandmate Flea’s podcast, This Little Light, he was figuring out “what he was trying to say.”

He generally divided guitarists into two groups: the “flashy” guitarists who focused on playing fast, and the “textural” guitarists who played simple, but focused on making every note meaningful. But he was undecided on which type of guitarist he wished to be.

Even as he started his career in the Chili Peppers, this sense of insecurity didn’t leave him. After all, he was living a fanboy’s dream of playing in his favorite band. And he was only 18, while his bandmates were at least 8 years older than he was. He was continually obsessed with impressing his bandmates, afraid that at any time, he would be told that he wasn’t good, and that he might get fired. He was fixated on playing as fast and as technically as he could, but all the while, he didn’t feel like himself. It’s no surprise that to this day, his first album with the band, Mother’s Milk, remains his least liked.

Eventually though, something changed in him. He looked towards his favorite guitarists, including Steve Vai, and realized that “different people have different things to say.” No one guitarist is better than the other, as every guitarist has their way of playing, whether flashy or textural, in order to say what they wanted to say. As for John, he was more textural himself, and it didn’t feel natural for him to play fast, even though by now, he was able to do it well.

At some point, he decided to throw out all of his preconceived ideas of “good” guitar playing, and started again at square one. He stopped caring about what other people might say. He would practice playing “like he sucked”, and this freed him to experiment and be creative. Often, he would listen to his practice recordings, and would be in awe of the many interesting sounds that he was able to come up with.

He said, “I had some sort of frozen concept of what ‘good’ meant, and roped in there was this fear that somebody could say I’m not a good guitar player, and when I let go of that and I went, ‘Play like you’re not that good at playing guitar’ – this beautiful stuff started coming out of me.”

It was not that he didn’t care about the quality of his work, only that he no longer had to force himself creatively. His focus was now to play right from the heart. As he explained, “I knew that what mattered was that you were feeling something and saying something.”

This philosophy of letting go applied not only to his music, but his personal life as well. No longer was he so preoccupied with people and the negativity in the world, which he had no control over. What mattered was his own actions and decisions. “So what if people are basically cruel? So what if the world is going down the toilet?” he said. “The purpose of my life should just be to make my own life as beautiful and creative as possible. Whether the world’s a beautiful place or a bad place doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m going to make my life a beautiful one.”

John’s epiphany forever changed the dynamic between him and his bandmates. As John was now more comfortable in his own skin, he wasn’t afraid to bring forward his own authentic ideas, even though they didn’t seem complicated or even interesting on the outset. Rather than trying to show himself off as a great guitarist, he was concerned with contributing to the overall gestalt of the band. He was confident in their chemistry, in that they could make any idea work, together.

They had such a great time in this new dynamic, that they would jam for hours and hours non-stop, just allowing themselves to wander. The resulting album Blood Sugar Sex Magik was a breakthrough success, putting them on the map as the new titans of funk rock. They continued to enjoy massive success in every succeeding album with John.

Understand that many things in art and life are subjective. And with that being said, it wouldn’t be relevant, at least not all the time, to follow the mold that other people have made for you. It’s worth thinking back on the various aspects of your life and work in which it is necessary to break that mold, and to create and live by your own.

Especially as a creative, you don’t have to follow other people’s work — even from your favorite artists. You can appreciate them instead — thoughtfully incorporating certain elements of their work into your own unique thing.

In the past couple of months, I’ve started attending more talks. And what I’ve realized so far is that the artists have similarly talked about following what feels natural to you.

For Red Hong Yi, she had always wanted to be an artist. But for a long time, she felt hindered by her lack of a formal education in art. She had last painted in high school too, and so painting no longer felt natural to her as an older adult. She decided to make the most out of her circumstances, particularly her background in architecture. So, she started “painting without a brush” or creating her artworks with unconventional materials, planning them meticulously like an architect, down to the minute details.

On the other hand, author Paul McVeigh spent about 10 years writing his novel The Good Son. He had never seriously considered himself as a writer, apart from the comedic short stories and scripts that he had written. To write a novel, especially set in The Troubles which he personally experienced, was too daunting for him. Other than writing dialogs, he didn’t feel confident in his ability to fully narrate a story. And so, he “cheated” in The Good Son by writing it as a comedy from the point of view of a young boy, in his Northern Irish dialect.

Let go of the known. Let go of the beliefs and conventions that don’t make sense to you. Be bold in living by your own ways that are natural to you. Learn to be comfortable in not caring about what other people may think and say about you and your work.

Nothing original and significant is for everybody. And so, you’re bound to make some enemies. If you have people who love your work, and people who hate your work, that’s a sign that you’re on the right track.

Whatever happened with John’s old music teacher, we don’t know. John, however, actually met Steve Vai in person a few years ago and got to tell him about the difficult experience he had with that particular teacher. It felt so, so good for John that Steve Vai himself sympathized with his story, as Vai even shared his own troubles with his teacher who “fucked up his brain for a while.”

He related with what Steve Vai had to say about Kurt Cobain, a grunge icon known for his bare-boned and sparse guitar-playing. As Vai said, “Kurt Cobain knew exactly enough to be able to say what he wanted to say.”

And that’s really it. So what if some people hurl their criticisms at your work — that it’s not complicated enough, or contrarily, too technical — or too whatever?

You just have to say what you have to say, and say it in your own way that’s natural to you, that you don’t have to force out of you.