So What
From Wikipedia: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
“Kind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. It is regarded by many critics as jazz’s greatest record, Davis’s masterpiece, and one of the best albums of all time. Its influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical genres, has led writers to also deem it one of the most influential albums ever recorded. The album was one of fifty recordings chosen in 2002 by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, and in 2003 it was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.”
What Wikipedia didn’t mention is that this album is reportedly the one that has been most played during love-making! When I first heard this album in my early twenties, it blew my mind so strongly that I started to read everything I could about Miles Davis. One particular book discussed what Miles was thinking when he wrote the first song on the album “So What.” Please note that I read this about 35 years ago and I’m relating what I remember so please forgive me if I am less than accurate.
Miles envisioned a church and a priest preaching to his congregation. The priest opens with his sermon, represented by the bass line (“Ba du bi di bi di ba di”) to which the congregation, represented by the trumpet and saxophone, responds: “So what!” The priest suspects that his congregation is hip to his bullshit so he or she tries again with another line, represented again by the bass line (“Ba du bi di bi di ba di”), but unmoved, the congregation again respond in unison: “So what!” After a few times, the priest becomes somewhat agitated, which is represented by the bridge and change in key, but the congregation is not having it and continuously calls him or her out on her bullshit with the response “So what!”
This completely blew me away! I certainly didn’t have the context at that young age but I later learned the gravity and significance of what Miles was saying. Ultimately, we are the priest saying the same old stories that we believe are so vital to our existence and constitute what consider to be our lives. But we, perhaps our higher selves or someone who understands and cares enough, or perhaps our therapist, are the congregation trying to bitch-slap us into waking up by calling us out on our bullshit and repeating “So what!”
Almost everything we believe is based on layers and layers of stories that are now stacked so high that we actually can’t see beyond them and believe them to be true. We believe that our stories are in fact who we really are instead of the costumes we wear to play our roles on this stage called life. This may seem like utter nonsense to anyone, or rather everyone who is invested in the stories they’ve weaved over a lifetime. At some point a transition occurred where we stopped creating the stories and the stories created us. We consequently hold on to these stories for dear life because we truly believe that if we let go of our stories, we will lose ourselves or perhaps even die.
Well, perhaps as many shamanistic traditions have suggested, you must die while you are alive in order to truly live. I certainly don’t have the answers or the prescription (Some wise old fool once said that if it were that easy, everyone would be enlightened, and we are not!), but I’ll take the advice that has been shared by many sages:
Let it all go, let go some more, and then let go of the letting go.
That phrase can mean many different things depending on the particular level on which you are operating. But regardless of where you are, you can always begin by looking at the mirror and saying “So what!” Every time you utter a belief, repeat to yourself “So what!” Every time you find yourself in a rut and wallowing in self-pity around some story that you have about your life that has caused this and that and led you here and there, just stop for a second and repeat: “So What!”
Byron Katie is a brilliant speaker and author who many would consider a sage. She teaches a method of self-inquiry known as “The Work,” whose purpose is to teach people how to end their own suffering. “The Work” guides people through the powerful process of inquiry where they find that their stressful beliefs — about life, other people, or themselves — radically shift and their lives are changed forever.
Katie’s experience, as described in her book Loving What Is, is that all suffering is caused by believing our stressful thoughts (aka our stories). This, she says, puts people into painful positions that lead to suffering.
Specifically. The Work is a way of identifying and questioning any stressful thought. It consists of four questions and a turnaround.
The four questions are:
- Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without the thought?
The next step of The Work, the turnaround, is a way of experiencing the opposite of the believed thought. For example, the thought “My husband should listen to me,” can be turned around to “I should listen to my husband,” “I should listen to myself,” and “My husband shouldn’t listen to me.”
Then one finds specific examples of how each turnaround might be true.
I love Byron Katie! After you apply her four questions and the turnaround to many of your stories and begin to clear your mental sinuses of your Kleishas (mental afflictions), you will hopefully arrive at a point where one of your stories will come up and you’ll start snapping your fingers on the 2nd & 4th beat of this Miles Davis song and repeat: “So what!”
I am an emergency physician, writer and a lover of life. The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas, experiences and perspectives as they relate to Consciousness, and as they evolve. Consciousness encompasses everything in my life, your life, the world, the Universe — in other words — EVERYTHING! As the great Shaman Don Diego used to say: “It’s not the most important thing, and it’s not the least important thing…It’s the ONLY thing!”
Check out my novel: “The Twin Flames, the Master, and the Game”! It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Balboa Press.
