I came across something the other day which pointed out that people who pursue their passion or vision are often seen by society as self-indulgent as if the "normal" aspirations of a good education, a successful, lucrative career and marrying, settling down, having children and buying a house are somehow not selfish?
I've often struggled to find a way to explain our reasons for being in Europe these last few years to anyone who asks. It is not a struggle to me because I don't need to justify it to myself but it can be difficult to put into words that make sense to others. Wondering about this reminded me of the quote from Bob Dylan in the intro to the film No Direction Home:
"I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere... set out to find... this home that I'd left a while back and couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn't really have any ambition at all.
I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be, and so, I'm on my way home, you know?"
For us, it's kind of like that. I don't know exactly what Dylan means by "home" but to me it is heard not as a physical location but the centre of you - the place before your personality, your true home. Once you identify and sit within that home you no longer need a physical home. You need shelter, a place to stay maybe, but not a permanent home you can call your own. When you no longer need a physical home paradoxically physical locations start to 'speak' to you. You are drawn like a magnet to the right place at any given time. This is how we have moved over the last 3 years. Since countries are just illusory man-made borders, we don't travel to visit countries and "look at the bricks", as John Lennon said. I watched an early Beatles interview recently and the Canadian interviewer had a bee in his bonnet about whether they were getting to see the sights on their travels. John eventually got irritated by this and replied "we are here to work not to see the bricks". That is how it is for SoulJahm. We may not have an entourage and a proper organised tour or recording schedule but it is a kind of work. The best kind of work. Our boss is Jah!
There is something familiar about the land of Europe for us. It couldn't be anywhere else but Europe. We are not particularly interested in the history, the sights, museums, nightlife and all that. The vibrancy that is there NOW in any given place is all that matters. You don't need to go anywhere or do anything in particular to feel that.
Entwined and inseparable from this is Music. For us they are like the land and the ocean, the soil and the seed. We can make music anywhere but we can only make this Music in Europe and this Music is the only one we are interested in working with.
That is not necessarily an easy thing and complications will always arise and attempt to deny simplicity but they can only ever cover it up. When your mind is clear and pure, it is very simple. The hard part is keeping your mind clear and pure because this world is built on complication. On this type of journey, there is only one outcome possible and so each time we fall all there is to do is get up and continue walking in the only direction we can go in.
Another thing Bob Dylan said:
“When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it - don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a lot of folks.”
And from Bob Marley, he said this:
"Life and Jah are one in the same. Jah is the gift of existence. I am in some way eternal, I will never be duplicated. The singularity of every man and woman is Jah’s gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole gift to Jah. The process of what that struggle becomes, in time, the Truth"
