AMOR FATI | 27 AUGUST 2025 | PARIS, FRANCE
“It sounds like you - that’s something you can never escape”. Words spoken to me by my mentor, Mr. Tommy Emmanuel after I performed a new composition for him backstage in Northern Italy last August. Poignant, considering this man seems to have known my destiny well before me. These days I have the Latin phrase ‘Amor Fati’ tattooed on my left thumb in the handwriting of my Napoli poet friend Gianni Menichetti. I put these words on me with only 50% faith in them, but with an intuition they would make sense over time.
Expanding chaos, knowing the threads are there between all the elements, links of gravity that will eventually catch and recompress the worlds of this universe back to a singular understanding. What is this integrated entity? What is the final form of all this? Is it the aforementioned fate - one’s final artistic, creative, or human output, even legacy? And does it truly exist before we are even present to interact with it, channel it, bring it into the physical world?
The best I can do is stay peaceful, meditative, curious, responsive to the split-second inflection points life offers to choose an elevated path. Or is it all already designed?
ART VS COMMERCE VS DHARMA | 20 AUGUST 2025 | LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Or is it Art and Commerce? I tend to lean towards the former. The more contentious, violent, austere one. Sitting atop the roof of Shoreditch House, London, making yet another attempt at answering the question of who I am and what do I do. The past 3 years have been a time of crystallization of my identity I believe, and some unexpected truths about the way I’m meant to exist and interact with the world have been uncovered. One such truth is based in the Sanskrit term, Dharma, present in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. It points to an ‘order’ in the universe where each soul finds and inhabits their divine station in life, and by doing so the universe is in harmony. To find this for yourself, a somewhat meditative state seems to be necessary, to then find one’s intuition, accurately perceive the signs/omens, then have the courage to act in accordance with those discoveries.
This is what I did when I came back to my craft of instrumental music 3-years ago. Tentatively at first, but then with more commitment as I saw dozens, and now hundreds of instances of divine serendipity, of life supporting me in ways beyond what I could manufacture on my own, all with the message of “yes, this is your path, you’re supported, and this is what you’re meant to do”.
I say all of this in a moment of discouragement actually. It seems, even in this flow, or perhaps just because I’m still in the early stages of this enlightened state, there are still worldly challenges. Perhaps there need to be, to keep us human. My faith is continually tested, and the struggles of being an artist in a world that is increasingly hostile to choosing that career path, are very real, eliciting frequent existential reanalysis. But I sat here in London this morning, in a hub of wealth and opulence, one step closer to knowing a truth that I’ve never seen taught in the West: there are practical, three dimensional reality paths to success, but the only one that seems to actually work for me, and also has what seems to be infinitely more abundance and beauty (beyond what I could ever manufacture on my own), is this path of Dharma. I think it’s time I double down and find the next iteration of how to interact with it, and in the interim, I like that I have continued proof of its existence as an effective alternate way to exist as a human, as an artist, as a soul who wants the most fulfilling life possible.
ARTISTIC CONCEPTION - HOW THE SEED OF A CREATION WILL ALWAYS REMAIN ITS ESSENCE | 14 AUGUST 2025 | PARIS, FRANCE
After spending my 20s as a producer/songwriter/side-man for other artists, I recently wrapped production on my first solo album. Granted, all prior musical pursuits had given me some foundational perspective on these topics, but really this was the first time I as a mature adult was in a position to invest the entirety of a somewhat well-rounded individual into a piece of art - and to do so with as much authenticity as I could carry.
For the purposes of this essay, I want to focus on the moment I first listened through all final productions at Belairstudio, Rome, Italy, in January of this year. The album was divided 70/30 for me. Of the 10 songs on the album, I could immediately feel the 7 songs which came from undeniably real, passionate, heartbroken, inspired moments. Similarly, I felt the contrast to the 3 songs that objectively had nothing wrong with them, but where the seed came from something slightly closer to perspiration rather than a melody whispered across from a parallel world [please see legends from Tom Waits to Dylan, Cohen, Cave all refer to the same experience].
I think it’s a concept that can be expanded to life. Whether true or not, I’ve begun to hold the belief that almost anything in life; friendships, relationships, any decision made from where to live to what job to take, carries with it the energy that exists in its conception, that is either pure/aligned/inspired, or less so, and can never be separated from the end manifestation.
To hear the 3 songs that weren’t as aligned was not a problem per se; I still love them and am proud of them, contributing to a well rounded body of work and artistic statement. But the observation that day, that was less cerebral as opposed to physical in the pit of my stomach / root chakra, was one that instilled a resolve to pay even more attention to these moments of ‘timeline conception’. To have the right intention in the beginnings of things - to not rush life - to be patient enough to let life talk to you, give you the song when you’re meant to receive the song, the friend when you need that particular friend, the right love when it’s aligned, and all other things of worldly and spiritual sustenance, in time, unforced, and with the right seed.