“In the most basic of ways, the artist cannot say where he is going, for if he knows ahead of time he is not creating but copying.” ~ Seth
It’s funny how any kind of creative expression has the ability to reflect our own bullshit back to us.
My preparation for my headline set at Grow Room last month was obsessive and meticulous.
It was my first headlining set in over 2 years… and I really wanted to “get it right.”
And it put me face to face with deeper insecurities:
In 2020 right before the lockdowns happened, I was enjoying my “come-up” in the scene as a DJ.
Wonderfruit Festival 2019 was my “breakthrough moment” when people suddenly started paying attention to me, shortly followed by Kolour In The Park.
Then, the pandemic happened, and everything went quiet.
When the scene started coming back to life, the kinds of gigs I was used to… didn’t.
I felt like people were sleeping on me… and leading up to this last performance, it filled me with a sense that I had “something to prove.”
I needed to “show people.”
Ugh - makes me cringe just thinking about it.
At the same time, I was totally aware of how destructive this egoic need for validation was… so I was doubly bothered by the fact that I couldn’t seem to shake it.
Triply bothered because it’s exactly the kind of attitude that leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see it in others and, well, I thought I was way past this kind of thing. And I did not want to admit to myself that I wasn’t.
(And if you examine your own life… you may find that this kind of conflict between how you think and feel, and how you think you SHOULD think and feel — a resistance to your own emotions — is at the heart of all perceived problems.)
The result?
I learned there is such a thing as being too prepared.
I was too controlled. Too calculated.
Which completely choked off my ability to enter that magic zone…
… the flow state… the perfect spontaneous in-the-moment calibration where magic unfolds effortlessly.
You see, there are three critical elements that need to be in place for flow states to happen:
There has to be something at stake. There needs to be some kind of RISK involved.
There needs to be immediate feedback from your environment.
You need to operate at the edge of your abilities. The challenge has to be right at the edge of your skill, which forces you to sharpen your focus in the moment.
Surfing is a classic example, along with most extreme sports.
When you are surfing, you’re at a constant risk of succumbing to the waves.
You’re receiving immediate feedback from beneath your surfboard, forcing you to make constant real-time adjustments.
Finally, no two waves are alike. The unpredictability of the ocean, combined with the stakes at play forces your mind into a sharp focus in the present moment.
DJing is another good example:
There’s always the risk of fucking up and potentially embarrassing yourself in front of a large crowd.
You’re getting constant feedback from the crowd.
And no two gigs are alike — each moment is new, and you’re constantly riding the waves of the energy in the room.
Because I was so obsessively and meticulously prepared, I managed to basically eliminate the risk, the uncertainty, and the challenge.
There was never a moment during my set where I didn’t know exactly what to do and exactly what to play next.
I even had several sequences of 3-4 tracks prepared which I knew ahead of time would mix perfectly together.
Now:
Any creative work is necessarily the result of the cooperation of logic and emotion; intellect and intuition; reason and imagination.
Another quote from our friend Seth comes to mind:
“Alone, reason finally becomes unreasonable. Alone, the imagination becomes less imaginative over time.”
As I was in the middle of preparing for my set, I thought I was setting up the conditions that would make it easier for me to enter a flow state.
Instead, by overly relying on reason and intellect to try to eliminate the fear of uncertainty… I ended up perfectly setting myself up for a situation where entering a flow state was nearly impossible.
But I don’t really have anything to complain about:
The mixes were clean.
The selection was on point.
The dance floor was thumping.
I got great feedback. Everybody had a good time.
But as the lights came on, I couldn’t help but feel something was deeply wrong:
I never felt the magic.
I couldn’t LET GO and just have fun.
A few more words from Seth:
“There is always a kind of artistic dissatisfaction that any true artist feels with work that is completed, for he is always aware of the tug and pull, and the tension, between the sensed ideal and its manifestation.”
I thought back to my late 2019/early 2020 sets that kickstarted my DJ career.
After my set at Wonderfruit 2019, I had dozens and dozens of strangers randomly approach me in the fields for the remaining 4 days of the festival, asking me
“Were you that DJ at the Sing Sing stage on Friday night? OMG that was amazing!”
In fact, to this day (and to my amazement) I STILL occasionally run into strangers telling me they remember me from that night almost 3 years ago.
Because back then I still considered myself a “nobody.”
My mindset back then shows a stark contrast to the conflicting emotions I’d been experiencing following the lockdowns:
I had nothing to prove.
I was just happy to be there, grateful for any opportunity to share my music.
I approached it all with a kind of joyful innocence.
And every set was magical.
It was only after thinking I had to be “somebody” that I started getting myself into trouble.
And it was PRECISELY the moment I started thinking I had to be a “somebody” that I stopped getting the kinds of bookings I thought I “deserved.”
Like I said… any kind of creative expression has the funny ability to reflect our own bullshit back to us.
We project ourselves outward; our innermost thoughts and feelings exteriorized in a space where we can confront them and come face to face with ourselves.
In hindsight, I realize this whole drama was something that simply had to be played out.
If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have learned these lessons with the depth and clarity that I did.
And now, I’m more excited than ever… more confident and trusting in my abilities than ever.
Now I find myself returning to a more pure, innocent and joyful state of mind that I’ve been yearning for and struggling to get back to, but been unable to…
… with the added benefit of the last few years of experience, growth, skill development, and everything else.
I’m most grateful for this experience.
I got to learn one of my most profound lessons about creativity, expression, and DJing through a kind of “fuckup” where nothing actually went wrong.
And I also recognize that these insecurities have served me quite well:
The need to prove myself made me push myself to be better, to perform at the highest level I was capable of.
But these old and limiting beliefs have served their function; carried me as far as they could.
Now it is time to leave all of that behind.
Final thought:
Nearly everyone I know is going through some kind of enormous personal change right now.
Chapters ending, new ones beginning.
A falling away of the old to make way for the new. The great sweep of time refreshing and renewing itself… a changing of the seasons, literally and metaphorically.
There seems to be a great fear of uncertainty in the air, along with a great excitement.
Personally, this DJ thing is like a shadow of that larger pattern, and I am going through similar and even greater transitions in my personal and business/entrepreneurial life.
If this also rings true for you, my best advice is to trust in the process.
The more you cling to old comfortable patterns, the more painful the transition will be.
All consciousness seeks expansion and growth…
… and when that growth brings you to a point where old clothes don’t fit anymore, the only thing to do is to discard them.
Even if it’s your favorite sweatpants.
Just keep growing. 🌿🌿🌿
~LINUS
Great read. Keep going!
PS: I play Copa de Brandy in all my sets these days