Magic, Reality and Volatility + EP Release

(upbeat music)

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Welcome to synchronicity. No guests this week, just me, but I got a lot of stuff going on. Cool stuff, promised stuff being delivered. Other things being announced. So first things first, it's in the name of the episode, EP Release, my first EP. The first thing I am publicly releasing. Up to date, the only people who have heard my music would be friends, classmates at college, people who stumbled upon hard to find sound cloud pages, or people who listen to this podcast. So you probably are in that group. We've heard some of the music, but I think that is a very small group of people because I've never publicly released anything.

I just haven't done it for a lot of reasons. And I wanna talk about, at least in the first part of this episode, kind of the process, not the logistical or technical process of releasing an album or an EP or a sing or any creative endeavor, but kind of the internal difficulties, struggles, obstacles, resistance, whatever you wanna call it, to getting something out in the world. And luckily, I have this podcast that kind of greased the wheels in terms of me being able to actually say, all right, here's stuff that I've finished. It may not be my definition of perfect. It may not, I probably could endlessly tweak and change things, but I've made the decision, all right, this is a thing, I am releasing it into the world.

So that's it. That seems like a very simple process, and I imagine for some people, it is. They're just like, all right, I have this thing, I'm gonna record these songs, I'm gonna make these songs, I'm gonna do it, and now it's out. That's awesome, I am not one of those people, but I also know I'm not someone who's just terrible at this stuff, so I wanna get my music out there, I wanna get my art out there. So why did it take basically 20 plus years, really 15 plus years since I've been making music? No, we'll say 20, we'll go 17 and a half, we'll split the difference. Why did it take so long for me to publicly release stuff?

And it's not because I'm not good, it's not because people didn't want me to. I've worked with a lot of artists, we've done some stuff, but why have I had this resistance to publicly putting stuff out there? And I think it falls, everyone has their own unique reasons, but my personal reasons have been, I could endlessly work on something until I felt comfortable, until I would feel comfortable that this is the perfect reflection of my best version of my artistic self, which is ridiculous. That's like a really stupid standard to hold yourself to. Some of our greatest musicians, artists, whoever you admire, like they've dealt with doubts too, and the first incarnations of what they were working on probably weren't their best either.

So that's a ridiculous kind of ideal to hold yourself to, but conceptually knowing that and intellectually knowing that is different than kind of beating that resistance and getting your stuff out there. So for me, what was the crucial turning point is seeing people who had stuff that they wanted to get out there, but not ever really being able to do that, and knowing that their stuff was good and kind of not wanting to replicate that pattern, but also just realizing that you can't ever do, you can't become what you wanna become unless you take the steps to get there. And I know that's kind of like a platitude, but what it means is if I wanna go around telling people, yeah, I'm a musician, I make music.

Yeah, I can tell people that. I went to a music college, I have a degree that says I do that, but really I'm just not, I'm just doing it for myself. It's my little thing, maybe it's almost like one step removed from having a song in your head and not putting it, committing it to recording or something like that. It's just one step removed from that. It's just your personal little selfish thing at the end of the day. And there's something to be said about creating art just for you kind of in a ritualistic way. I'm not dismissing that in any way, but if you're really wanting, if you're creating music 'cause you want people to hear it and you want them to appreciate it and then you gotta get it out there.

So I realized the longer I was delaying that process, I mean, I've spoken about on this podcast now, it's a year late, this EP, and I'll get to the details, don't worry. I realized like I could do this forever, I could just delay, this is just my thing. So by publicly kind of committing to saying that I'm gonna be doing it, I thought last year that would give me kind of the final push to get it out. But as it happened, I didn't have kind of the time and energy to get it done. And it wasn't really gonna give me that final push. Saying it that I was gonna release this helped me eventually get it out there, but that wasn't again the final kind of crucial piece that got me to do it.

The crucial piece was just realizing and was kind of in tandem with next week's guest, Dean Radin, who wrote a book called Real Magic. We'll talk about that a little bit. Realizing that if you wanna create substantial change in physical 3D reality, you have to take tangible steps doing that. And really doing it, right? I have the songs, I have the things, just finishing them, putting the final touches until they're ready for the world. So they're ready for the world. It wasn't that big of a step for me to take. It's not as though I have been doing something my entire life and then all of a sudden I change my mind and wanna do something else.

This is something that I've kind of been working towards for a very long time. So realizing that you actually have to take the practical steps and do it. And kind of letting that overcome any resistance or fear. And of course, I wanna be clear about this. Every single time I put something out there, even if it's just the podcast, I have the same thoughts that anyone else would is, are people gonna think this is stupid? Is this not gonna be good? Are people gonna misunderstand? Are they gonna think I'm bad? This is just regular shit that everyone has to deal with. But when it comes to something, you know, like music or song you're releasing, like this is something that was a very personal kind of connection to something that's esoteric outside of you, kind of spiritual for a lot of people.

Really committing that and giving that to other people as an offering or providing that platform for an offering is kind of a big deal. And you don't wanna make it too big of a deal because then you can be like, oh no, I'm never gonna do it. But you also don't wanna be careless about it and just like shit throw stuff out there. So finding that balancing act is also something that I've kind of struggled with. But at the end of the day, I just realized fuck it. So many people have written to me being like, when's the EP coming? You know, I really enjoy your music, please release it. And I was just like, all right, I'm now just basically being a jerk and letting other people down by not doing what I know I'm supposed to be doing.

And finally, the final piece was, I just kind of listened to that inner voice just like, what are you supposed to be doing? What do you wanna do with your life? And if you're not taking a step back every so often, hopefully as regularly as possible and listening to that voice, you're doing yourself a tremendous disservice because that voice usually knows exactly what you want because it's your voice, it's your unconscious, it's yourself, it's your spirit, whatever you wanna call it. But it really has pretty practical information for you in terms of achieving what you think you want or what you actually want sometimes.

So pay attention to all those things. I really do encourage any artist, any creatively, you know, person who's getting in touch with their creative abilities or wants to express them, maybe you don't even know if you are, just pursue it, right? Okay, this is not saying, I'm gonna release this EP, it's gonna be the best thing everyone's gonna go nuts. Oh my God, look how big of a genius is, that's why you should release it, that's why you should get your stuff out there, no. It's probably gonna be like everyone else's kind of release out into the world these days, the people who are tuned in and appreciate it, we'll like it, hopefully that spreads to some other people, but I'm not gonna be Lil Wayne and Kanye topping the charts, Nicki Minaj, I don't know who's on top of the chart, I have no idea, I go on Spotify, I look at listening to this stuff sometimes.

Not bad, it's terrible when you listen to stuff that was like top of the charts 50 years ago, but what are you gonna do? But you should get it out because it's just as an integrative process for being a human being, I think it's really important to share stuff. Now try to also take the time, I took 20 years, 15 years before I felt that I had something, and that's not true, I didn't think 15 to 20 years to feel like I had something I could share, took me 15 to 20 years to overcome the resistance to sharing that stuff, it probably took me like five years before I had something that was worth sharing, truthfully to a large group of people, someone a long time ago told me don't ever share anything that's not finished if you plan on getting a release.

And I've routinely just dismissed that, not intentionally, but I've done it with this podcast, I've released plenty of unfinished music and the intros and things like that, and I don't know that that's great advice to not release things, sometimes just as an exercise to see how people react to something is a good idea, and I really recommend that everyone do it, but also taking the time to hone your craft and really be sure of what you're trying to say and what you're trying to communicate as best you can is also important, so again, this is not a one-sided, just do it, do it, do it all the time, there is this kind of discernment and reflection that's needed, anyway, I've talked about it enough, and what I'm not gonna do is either hype or not hype my album, you shouldn't be self-critical when releasing anything creative, you shouldn't say, "Hey, well it's not that great, it's not that good,"

and I know I kind of did that before, I'm just saying I'm not gonna be number one, I'm realistic about that, all right, but you also shouldn't overly hype your stuff, don't like fake hype your stuff, I'm pretty excited about this album because it's a reflection of what I've been working on and I actually like finished enough things that I could say here it's done. Outside of that, you be the judge, so here we go, the name of the album is Kaikion, that's K-Y-K-E-O-N, that's a name, it came to me today, it's basically the sacrament that was used in the Ellucinian Mysteries, based on people think it was a psychedelic, but for me, what it signifies is kind of this alchemical process of shifting your consciousness away from the world of kind of mundane, everything is logical, rational, to also incorporating and beginning to mix in kind of this super normal, supernatural, mystical, kind of woo-woo stuff, but that is also real and not totally made up stuff, so that's why the album is called Kaikion, it's album, it's an EP, there's four tracks, one of those tracks, the first one is only 57 seconds long, so it's really like three tracks with kind of an intro.

Regardless, I'm really, really happy with it, I'm super happy to be getting it out. It is premiering on all of your favorite channel, iTunes, Spotify, all, basically every place you can listen to music, it should be out in the next few days. I'm gonna have a distribution going out everywhere, and you'll be able to buy it, and I'll be setting prices and all of that. However, four podcast listeners, if you want it, I'm making it available on my website, syncpodcast.com, S-Y-N-C, podcast.com, or for patrons, for patrons, $9 level, anyone who's already a patron on Patreon at the $9 level goes without saying you get this for free, you've been doing, you've been putting in the time, but anyone else, you can sign up for that, get the album, download it, and then immediately revert back to a lower level if you're that type of person, but I just wanna make this available for listeners of the podcast first, so it will be out, you'll be able to search for it, and all your favorite stuff, and I appreciate it.

If you could support it, that's cool, but only support it if you really like it. That's really what I want you to do. I don't really wanna talk about too much about the album, the music, I hope speaks for itself. There is a concept behind it that I kind of retroactively fit in, and I'll probably put that into some liner notes that I'll include with the album, but outside of that, I'm just happy to have finished it and got it out, so yeah, that's it. So now moving on to two things that I'm super interested in, and I mentioned Real Magic by, you can see that my autocorrect changed it to Dean Radio, but his name is Dean Radon, R-I-D-I-N, and it's a really, really awesome book, and it's fucking amazing.

And I have him coming on Monday, so that'll be out for you next week. It's just an astounding book. Go pick it up if you wanna kind of get tuned in to what I've been, has been percolating in my mind over the past week, and what next week's guest we'll be talking about. But in it, there's just so much awesome stuff about how reality and magic and science is just, it's such a, not only exists, and not only just not made up, but really just the implications of what that means for us as humans, as individuals, as a collective, is astounding. I'm not gonna get too much into this 'cause I wanna talk, get into it with Dean next week, but I've been trying to reconcile that with what's going on from a pragmatic, practical standpoint in the United States political situation.

I alluded it, not alluded, I spent some time last week in the intro talking about it, with the Brett Kavanaugh situation and the Supreme Court, and I think I recorded that after, I think I recorded it after Blasey Ford's testimony, and everyone was just like, all right, this dude's done, and then a couple hours later, I watched Brett Kavanaugh's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I have never seen anything like that in my entire life, so now we'll just recap it just a little bit. I'm sure everyone's seen it, and I'm sorry you're gonna get politics if you don't want it, but I've never seen anything like that, I was insane.

I was live tweeting it 'cause I was just astounded that this was going on, he's just from the second he came out, and I know there are probably people who disagree, I know there are people who disagree with me about whether he did what he's alleged to have done, but I mean, dude, I went to school, I went to parties with people like Brett Kavanaugh, like that's who you need to understand, that culture is embedded, it's like, it's the indigenous culture of Bethesda, Maryland, my high school is Bethesda, to be chased high school, these private school kids are just, you won't meet more entitled people in your entire life, their parents are important people, they've assumed that they're important people, and they just don't give a shit, and that basically what you saw is a rich, spoiled, white dude complaining that he wasn't getting what he was promised he was gonna get, that's what we saw, and it was insane, and I was pretty sure that wasn't going to exclude him from getting into the Supreme Court as a Supreme Court justice, however, now a week later, wrong, I'm pretty sure, we're sitting here on Thursday, what is it, October 3rd, pretty sure he's gonna get confirmed, the waffling kind of indecisive votes are looking like they're gonna go towards confirming him after this FBI investigation that I guess they didn't interview anyone who actually was involved, but regardless, it looks like it's gonna happen, which is pretty fucking crazy, just to be clear, and it's heightening this polarity, this polarization that's happening, it's making it even bigger, it's just really wrinkling people, as you can see by me even speaking about it, right, I don't tend to bring up politics on those podcasts, but it's a really big deal, so that's where we got three things going on here, right, we got the real magic kind of Dean Radon, holy shit, what the fuck is going on, there's some crazy stuff going on in the world that is empirically verifiable, then we have this total crazy polarization in our political and cultural situation where it's seemingly beginning to be okay to be a racist and be overt about that, and we won't get into the historical, and the analogies and kind of the similarities of what happened, I'm not saying we're turning into Nazi Germany, but you'd be surprised how far along we are in the process before, Hitler really came to power and like flipped the script on everyone, you'd be surprised where we are in that, so those are the two things, and then the third thing is what is supposed to be kind of a bastion, or, I hope I'm using that word, right, kind of like a stabilizing factor in many people's lives, it used to be religion, is this sense of spirituality, is this sense of there's something more to the world that can inform our decisions, based things related to wisdom and compassion and generosity, these things, and often where we go to find those things are teachers or communities, and I spoke about this last week with Dr. Miles Neil, basically talking about how a lot of this stuff is turned into water-down versions of what the real kind of magic and juice of that stuff and kind of these lineages and some of the real wisdom that's embedded in there, that's kind of just, that's been genetically modified and extracted from its casing and put in packages that they serve up, and all this glossy and nice looking stuff to people in the West to feel better about a kind of shitty situation, right, the environment's not looking so hot, it looks like Fashive Zoom is on the rise, and I am not saying this, I saw, I don't know who, a famous author posted something on his Facebook page that a lot of people were sharing, it was just like this whole depressing kind of like, the world is gonna be destroyed environmentally in 50 years, guaranteed, like it was just basically like doomsday, kind of apocalyptic, you know, thoughts of someone who seemed relatively depressed.

I'm not saying that everything is fucked, we're all screwed, we should be screaming, but what I am saying is that if we just keep kind of presenting mindfulness or spirituality or yoga or whatever these things is just kind of tools for us to numb ourselves or be a little bit better, you know, feeling about ourselves, while everything around us is burning, eventually that just isn't gonna work anymore, and I think we're kind of getting to that point. So the intersection of all of these things, real magic in the world, real kind of awesome crazy stuff that we've seen happen, synchronous is obviously a part of that, the cultural situation and societal situation we find ourselves, which is just high volatility, and then also that volatility seeping into the spiritual kind of community world.

And so my final point with all of this is to say that if you're finding yourself gravitating towards people who are talking about new age stuff or psychedelics or spirituality or technology or any of the really cool and interesting things that one could tune into these days, and they're not talking about any of the other fucked up shit that's going on, whether that's sexual harassment or assaults or immigration situations or just fucked up stuff, and they're tuning into people like Jordan Peterson who are making excuses for these people and helping to kind of embolden them, just stay on that shit, be aware of it, because it's really good sometimes to use kind of spirituality or parapsychology or dreams or any of this stuff as a distraction from our actual lives, which is why, I mean, as weird as some of these episodes can get, one of the things I really like to do is ask people at the end, what's a practical tip?

Just 'cause like, bring it back down to Earth, like, what are you doing when you're not talking about your thing? You know, what's something that's helped you when shit gets really tough, right? When something is your world is falling apart, what are you leaning on? What has been there for you? I really like to hear about it from people because that's important. So I'm bringing that up just because I think we're getting to the point where if you're not calling this stuff out, and you don't have to be depressing about it. I mean, I think the Breck-Havanaugh situation is horrible, it is like, this has been some of the funniest shit I've ever seen.

This guy asks a senator, do you ever play quarters? I mean, this is fucking insane. Anyway, my point is this is just be aware of what's going on. Don't be one of the people who go to Burning Man to kind of escape their shit lives where they're working for the man or doing things that they don't wanna be doing, supporting a system, they don't wanna be supporting, just so they can calm down for a week. And if you're one of those people, that's okay, but just try to bring this stuff into the rest of your life. I realize not everyone can kind of just pull the plug and be like, all right, I'm gonna give this whole alternative living thing a style.

I try, I'm gonna get into cryptocurrency and be rich all of a sudden, that's not what I'm advocating for. What I'm saying is just be aware that all this stuff is intimately connected. So if you're not paying attention to the kind of rise of white nationalism, you know, misogyny taking on a fevered pitch in this world, like, you gotta pay attention, that stuff. Anyway, I think that's it. I mean, I think this is the fun album release episode. That's what I'm calling the state of the unity. I really do, listen, we are all connected. I know people who support Kavanaugh. I don't agree with them in any way, shape or form.

But I'm willing to allow their kind of conditioning or their own thoughts to determine what they believe. Just as I'm allowed to determine what I believe. I can vehemently disagree with them. But this isn't to say you have to agree with one position or another. It's just that you wanna stay open minded about this stuff. And you wanna remain compassionate about this stuff too. You don't wanna just shit on people who don't agree with you. You can kinda shit on Brett Kavanaugh. This is definitely a douche. But for the most part, like, be respectful of everyone you meet is best to the best of your ability.

And just, like, recognize that all this shit is connected. So with that, how about we end this mini episode? I do, I have, like, legitimately, I'm excited for these guests I have coming up. I mentioned one, Dean Raiden. I have others who you definitely know. They're not gonna be people you don't even know. They're gonna be people you've heard of. So I'm gonna try to keep all of this going throughout the fall. I love the fall. I love Apple's. This episode, by the way, this isn't gonna be-- I now-- I now have to backtrack every single time I release these because I did-- All right, we'll do a fake ad first.

This episode is brought to you by Apples. I love Apples. If you're someone who likes sweet Apples, you're an idiot. You're supposed to be looking for Tarte Apples. Those are the good ones. Big shout-out to Montgomery Place on Route 9, Red Hook, Rhine Beck area in New York. They got some of the best antique variety of Apples. This is kind of a real ad for them now. Go check them out. Although they've been running out. Someone has been catching on to these Apples. I like these Ashmeade Apples. They got the Bell, the Boscoops. I love these. They're Tarte. Delicious, full-bodied Apples, but someone, I don't know, someone's going into buying all these out.

They're only there for like a day or two. They used to last for like a week, but now people are buying these all out. Honestly, I might go get these Apples right after I'm done recording this. So yes, Apples, this episode brought to you by Apples. This episode is actually also brought to you by Meister. I mentioned Meister in the last episode. This is a real sponsor. So I actually go support these people. It helps me. It helps them. It's a win for everyone. This is your weed. I'm not calling a cannabis. Fuck out of here. I call it a weed. I'll see that as lovingly as possible. It's weed. I love it.

This is your weed accessory company. I mentioned the stash tray last episode. I'm going to mention it again. This is something that if you are a daily or regular smoker and you have a significant other who is a tidy type of person who doesn't want weed clippings and little things, places, this is for you. Also, this is a really easy thing. You can have a self-contained unit where you basically have all your stuff. You can put it in a bookshelf. Looks like a book. So it's pretty cool. It's called the stash tray. You can get anything on get Meister.com. Meister is with a Y-M-Y-S-T-E-R. So go check it out.

Use the code SINK at checkout, S-Y-N-C, and you get 15% off, whatever you get. If you get a bunch of stuff, that's more money off. That's how it works. You don't know how percentages work, I just taught you. Thank you. I meant to say you're welcome. You're welcome. That's it. We've got a mix of business. We got a bit of creativity and music. We got a bit of culture and society, and we got a bit of ranting. That's a complete episode in my book. Oh, how about-- no, I already told you, right? Kikeon, the album, I told you where to get it. Right now, there's really nothing you're going to do. By the time this is released, there's an off chance it'll be on all of those platforms, iTunes, all that stuff.

But if it's not, you can just go to Patreon. Right now, sign up for the $9 level, which is the get all my music level. You get all of my music that I've released on this show. But also, this album you will get. I guess for free, kind of, but you just paid $9 to do it. And there's a be in here. OK, there's a be in my house. I'm going to take that as a sign to leave. So I'll be doing that, and I will see you next week. [MUSIC PLAYING]