“I am a continuation, like the rain is a continuation of the cloud.” — Brother Thây, as his students affectionately called him, was a living, breathing love letter to humankind, and to life itself. There was no human emotion — love, anger, fear, despair, sadness, contemplation, boredom, joy — that this humble Vietnamese monk was not able to fully penetrate, and transform, through the…

Winter is a song with a thousand melodies, but you have to train your senses to hear them. — Ever notice how quiet nature is in winter? Only a few hardy birds pierce the silence. In the stillness and the chill, you can actually hear snow fall. Sound seems to travel frictionlessly, for miles around, and your breath simply hangs, silently in the air, reminding you you are alive. …

It doesn’t come from anywhere. It’s already there. — Every song that will ever be written already exists. There are only 12 notes, after all (at least in Western music). Mathematically, all possible melodies are already living and hovering “out there” (as well as “in here”) — just as all colors exist all the time in the spectrum. Factor…

Mathematics, fate, and the mysterious logic of life — There are more than 50 billion web pages online now. What are the odds of your finding these words and reading them… today? One in 50 billion. Statistically, that’s basically zero. Maybe you once had a car accident. What were the odds of that unfortunate event’s happening to you, in…

Escaping the digital vampire is easier said than done — The instant you come to consciousness in the morning, you feel it. You hear it, buzzing in your ears. The cacophonous call of the collective nervous system. Demanding what? Not you, personally. It doesn’t want you or care about you. It wants your attention. It demands your attention. Congratulations, you’re a zombie You think…

And what wants to happen around you. You’re walking in the middle of a foggy road. You don’t know what you’re doing here. You don’t know where it leads. You may not even know how you got here. Inside the crippling confusion lies an often barely perceptible choice. Will you go back to your panic room —…

What would be the value of anything if you didn’t have to dig for it? — I’m a relatively obscure writer, singer and songwriter. Like everyone else, I want to be received, listened to, heard, read. But I don’t need applause… anymore than the birds I’m watching now — perching, flying, singing, pecking for worms — need any applause from me. The air I “fly” in…

Author Regina Clarke sits me down for an interview — When I joined Medium earlier this year, I did not expect to find kindred spirits right away. I was just excited to have a place to publish my thoughts under my own name (an unexpected treat for a ghostwriter). I’d just released a new single, Small Town Dark Night, but…

Two words you should banish from your lexicon — If only I had all the money, the time, the space, the equipment I need. If only I were taller, shorter, thinner, thicker, better-looking. If only I were younger, or my knees didn’t hurt, or I could walk again. If only someone would tell me what to do. If only…