Jacob’s Infinity

Cory Wong runs an excellent podcast called "Wong Notes".

His audience veers towards musicians, specifically guitarists, who value sonic input as much as they love their instrument.

I've spent my week washing more dishes than I thought imaginable. We don't have a dishwasher. I usually wear my apron with a vegan dinosaur on it. Washing dishes isn't difficult, but it isn't easy either. A liminal, spaced out combo: in other words, perfect podcast biome.

Jacob Collier was on "Wong Notes" a while ago, and I listen to it wiping away butter spoons and crusted pans. Jacob to me embodies a liberated musician.

I don't think he plays wrong notes. He just fits them all in somehow.

That must be the golden equation that continues to make him not only successful, but joyful. He's a musician, first-- yes. But, he strikes a chord within the creative community at large. Golden musical quotes populate this episode, alongside his hope for this generation of musicians.

He hopes that, at the end of the day, he can wake up and not feel bound to a previous version of himself.

In other words, he hopes to be the "10,000 Jacobs" available to him that day.

That's his hope for everyone. To just be one of their 10,000. Or multiple.

Jacob says his favorite way to perform is to wake up, not knowing who he is that day, and then flow between his 10,000 versions with ease. He defines authentic performance as being true to himself in front of people.

"If people can walk away from my show feeling permission to be their authentic self, then I've done my job."

It's a musical approach to life: he doesn't play wrong notes or "wrong" versions of himself.

He just fits them all in somehow.

He talks about his relationship to the infinite as well.

To provide some context, he's a Logic Pro magician (Logic is a popular digital audio workstation). He's won multiple Grammy Awards with it. Stacking endless instruments and tones on top of each other, tickling palettes and breaking rules just to change them again.

A composer, tethered to the masters. A genius, wrangling infinite possibilities and infusing them, scattered.

Liberated.

Again; he wrangles the infinite.

What does that even mean?

Let me pivot.

I am just picking my guitar up again. A lethal combination of burnt-out creativity from college and the loss of function in my hands kept both my guitars in their cases for a year and a half.

I'm lucky; my hands have finally healed enough to give me some music back.

If you don't know, I've had severe eczema my whole life. I can usually heal it up in the morning and at night enough for people to not take notice, but these past few months have been a different story.

"What is that on your neck?"

"Oh my god, is that contagious?"

"Are you dying?"

"Oh yeah, I had eczema as a kid. It sucks. It just went away one day."

"Have you tried this moisturizer? I'll bring you some tomorrow."

How kind.

I know people care. They want to help.

When I have no skin barrier and my neck and hands and arms are red-stained cracking excuses of a previous body, I get thrown moisturizers. People show their care by saying, "I got over it. Why haven't you?"

I know. That's not what they mean.

And no -- it's not contagious.

I find a solution that works for a week or two, only to degenerate again.

But now, thank god for biologics. A hearty dose of Dupixent, lovingly stabbed into my stomach, every two weeks. And boom. Say bye to those clever, overreactive interleukins.

I'm back. My hands are back. They recovered from complete rawness to functional, fingered machines dancing through frets and keys with ease.

I'm dancing through the same Logic that Jacob uses, and I'm starting to see how ridiculous of a machine it is.

Jacob (I hope I can call you by your first name) talks about it like this:

"It's infinite. You can do anything you want. You can create any sound, any iteration, ever."

To summarize his theory, he sees two kinds of musicians:

Those who thrive in the infinite. And those who don't.

Someone like Jacob looks at Logic, with thousands of sounds, sonics, and stories, and he navigates it. Never intimidated by making a "wrong" choice. He decides, jumping flawlessly from one key to the next. And it works. Most of the time.

Maybe that's the trick. Yes -- It is flawed. But he makes a decision. There are no, Wong notes.

I'm looking into that infinite feeling a bit paralyzed. There are too many notes, too many ways to jump, too many no's, too many possibilities. I've lost strength in my hands. My skin is still thin. Maybe I can't make a decision about it.

It's fun. But, it's a lot.

Maybe I don't want to make a "wrong" decision -- if that exists.

I'm talking about music, and I'm not talking about music.

Maybe that's enough of a decision right now.

I'm learning the fretboard. Memorizing notes, scales, arpeggios, majors and minors, the circle of fifths.

It's fun. But it's a lot.

I'd like to give myself more time to be bad at it. I'm not following some golden standard, universal calendar deadline. It's just me and my olive green telecaster. Her name is Iris.

Slowly, I'm getting to know that instrument. I traded in two of my relics this week. Two souls that I know pretty well. Thousands of fingerprints scattered on their vinyl, wooden bodies. I cried when I played my acoustic, playing Amos Lee one last time in a sonic bath of Teton silver-tone.

I know those guitars. I always will. They made themselves known.

And, I think it was time to pass them along.

Iris is giving me enough to think about that hopefully I stop thinking. I feel a creative flurry like a cold, delayed January. Like when it starts to sprinkle rain out of nowhere, and then goes away. A whisper.

I'm ready for the cold. But, I do miss those two. They’ll be in another set of good hands, literally.

I'm finding a new soul right now.

And, probably working on mine as well.