RUSTY REID
Q: Rusty, your song The Meaning of Life is dealing with such a deep and never-ending question-what inspired you to write about this subject?
Hello Derek, and thanks for the interview. Well, I kind of stumbled into thinking about the question as part of my quest for an overall worldview that would make sense from all angles. So I was looking at the “big picture” of life in general and human cultures embedded within that framework, with the Universe itself being the larger tapesty. I’m not good at math or science, but I wanted to take these complex theories and equations and build a “story” around them that would explain the world in a way that anyone could understand, and, because it’s based on science, perhaps we could all agree upon. Told in story form, it’s truly an amazing, beautiful and inspiring tale that we all share. The Big Bang. The evolution of the Universe. The creation of our Solar System. The evolution of life. The incredible chain of events that had to occur to create a spindly tree-dwelling ape that eventually got kicked out of the forest and had to survive out on the African savanna, and from there how we evolved, physically and culturally into the species we became. So I got that far, but then had to grapple with the question, “OK, there are all these life forms–and, as the champions of evolution, ‘we’ have literally been many of them–but what is it really all about? What meaning and purpose does life have in a universe of cold space and searing stars?”
That’s when I began researching what others said about the Meaning of Life, and I noticed something surprising. Almost all of them came at it from a strictly human angle. I was dumbfounded. How can you talk about the meaning of LIFE, and not bother to take into account every other LIFE form? It was just a stunning mistake from my perspective. I chalk it up to good old human self-absorption and hubris. Once that blindfold is removed, I think anyone could figure out the riddle. What are all life forms doing pretty much all the time? They are pursuing their happiness. As a songwriter, I had to get into a song ASAP.
Q: You start off the song with this idea that happiness is not something that simply comes to us. Why do you think most people think it’s something passive that just happens?
Because of our evolved “intelligence,” which actually often takes the form of being detached from nature, we humans are different from all other life forms. We make the pursuit of happiness harder than it should be. That doesn’t mean we’re not on the pursuit, ourselves, all the time. We’re not passive. It’s just that we are hard to please. We want things we don’t need. We want things that don’t exist. And we are told we can have these things, but must wait for them. Wait to grow up. Wait to get a degree. Wait to get a job. Wait to get a life partner. Wait to be able to afford something. Wait to live “happily ever after.” Wait to die and go to heaven. No other life form is this stupid. Even with all the suffering in the world, happiness is all around, available to tap into at any moment. Blessing are showering down on us all the time. But we have to do the hard work of waking up, recognizing it and grasping it.
Q: You later say, “Trusting our happiness to fate is not what we are meant to do.” What would you like listeners to take away from that line?
There are a couple of strands of awareness going on here. One is that our culture prods us to conform, get in line, obey, don’t rock the boat, believe what you are told, and everything will work out, somehow culture will deliver happiness. And sometimes that works, but it turns out many people are miserable doing exactly that. Another interpretation is that many buy into notions of predestination or “God’s plan,” or some other form of determinism, which downplay or even discourage taking the bull by the horns and actively pursuing your own happiness. When we look at other life forms, they aren’t waiting around hoping some “good luck” or “Mr. Right” will come their way, they are on the go, pursuing it.
Q: You call for listeners to open up their hearts. Can you talk about why you feel it’s important to embrace life with an open heart.
Yes, in the song I call on the human heart, the mind and the soul to open up to the awareness that the pursuit of happiness is our fundamental mission as living beings, and to embrace the depth of that quest. How you approach that mission, what you set as your goals, what you regard as important, who you help along the way are crucial to what quality of life you are going to have. If you are selfish and/or chasing after the wrong things, you are setting yourself up for a life that won’t be as happy as it should be. Most of the philosophical and religious systems caution similarly. The Taoist version is “the happiest man needs the least to be happy.” That’s stunningly profound when you think about it, and then think about all that we modern humans usually desire.
Q: The chorus is very forthright: it says the meaning of life is in the pursuit of happiness. Do you see happiness as something that’s universally pursued, or rather more personal and individual?
Yes, it is universally pursued, but also always personal and individual. Every species has a different definition of what provides “happiness.” The little prokaryote, without even a cell nucleus, is busy purusing happiness. It knows food from not food, hot from cold, dark from light, salty from not-salty, acidic from alkaline, and manuevers to satisfy its desire. Obviously, what makes a dolphin happy is not the same as what makes a tulip happy, yet both are pursuing their happiness all the time, with a break for rest, then right back to it. The dolphin is doing back-flips in the ocean and the tulip is slowing turning toward the sun. That’s all it takes to make them happy in the moment.
Q: As you sing about helping people to find their happiness, it seems like it’s a precept very involved with community. How big of a role do you think human connection can play in finding true happiness?
As social creatures, the gang around us is generally of great importance to our well-being in ways both physical and mental. This is true of all social animals, and even, we are learning, among some other life forms. Trees, for instance, commnicate with their neighbor trees, and can go into a “depression” when one is cut down. In our human cultures, helping others is deeply rooted. The impulse is in our genes, not that everyone activates that impulse equally. But those who do find that it is a direct portal to their own happiness. Helping others and being out in nature are two sure-fire ways to improve your own disposition and outlook, at the same time lessening your desire for other “stuff.”
Q: In your second verse, you say how happiness eludes us if we’re not easily pleased. Is this from personal experience or something you have come across through others?
Definitely it’s from personal experience. I have not been exempt from the thinking that I would be happy if I had this or that. Hey, that notion is indoctrinated, it is promoted, it is encouraged, it fuels our economy. So it’s no surprise we look around and everyone has been sucked into the same vortex of desire. The ads are non-stop: You would be so much cooler… if you had this. You would be so much healthier… if you had this. You would be so much happier… if you had that. But I noticed that the “happiness” that these things provided when I got them was fleeting, if it could be described as “hapiness” at all. After falling for these ads a million times, I finally realized the OPPOSITE was true… I’m happier without these “things” and just out helping others or walking around in nature, or just in considering all the blessings that, right now, are upon me. What’s that old saying, “The best things in life are… free!” It’s absolutely true.
Q: Your song gives the example of nature: trees and birds can find happiness so easily. What do you think we can learn from nature in terms of living joyfully?
Yeah, trees and birds were all I got in the song because I had a lot of other points to make, but all other life forms are better at this pursuit of hapiness project than we are usually are. Indeed, even with all our smarts and discoveries and technology and luxuries and distractions, we are the worst, by far, at the “meaning of life.” That’s quite an indictment, but it’s true. The vast majority of humans who ever lived endured uncomfortable and confused lives. That statement is not true of any other life form. Humans make it hard on themselves and others (not to mention the war on nature). If we could only be as happy as the octopus collecting its nest of shells or the songbird whistling its tune, we’d be a lot better off in more ways than one.
Q: In the song, you said, “open up your mind,” “feel the world’s delight.” How do you actually get them to slow down and smell the roses nowadays?
This world is so incredibly beautiful, and gives us so much. Are we thankful? No. Oh, we give thanks to “God,” an entity which, at least so far as people imagine, does not exist. In opening our mind to the stupendous gifts that Mother Earth creates and provides, we are on far firmer ground, literally and figuratively. It’s fertile ground, in fact, for finding happiness in the here and now. Ever think about how happy are you that there is air to breathe? Water to drink? Delicious fruits and grains and greens and berries and nuts and seeds and other food to eat? None of that exists anywhere else in our Solar System or for light years beyond. How wonderful to be able to see, hear, touch, smell, taste, walk, run, laugh, cry, love. How wonderful to think, to learn, to have access to these incredible discoveries of modern science, to travel the world. In each of these gifts and activities are to be found our most profound happiness. Alas, most of these are taken for granted at any given moment, when they could be bulwarks of our sustained success on the quest for happiness.
Q: You also give the impression that to wake up every day is a kind of magic. What do you mean, and how does it shape your way of living?
Yes, that story… the Story of Now, the Story of Us… details just how miraculous it is that there is a universe at all, a world at all, life at all. There didn’t have to be. But somehow there is. And it is amazing. Sure there is great suffering in the world. We can’t discount that. Some of it is required. Death is the best system ever devised for allowing the most things to live. Can you imagine if there was no death? That would be a nightmare for the living. To live is a privilege. It’s a magic trick. Most atoms and molecules in the Universe never get that chance. Every day alive is a diamond. Realizing this changed my very outlook on life in general, and my life in particular. The pursuit of happiness got a lot more focused, a lot easier, a lot deeper at the same time.
Q: Musically, there is an instrumental break allowing reflection to take place. Why did you decide to put that into the song, and what do you hope it adds to the message?
Even when I’m putting together a song that has an intellectually potent theme and “words of wisdom” so to speak, I still want the song itself to live and breathe as a musical piece. I love melody and interesting instrumentation, and try to get those into every song I write. As you mention, the break allows for a bit of reflection, but also bumps the energy a bit and sets the table for the final verse and chorus.
Q: In the last verse, you say heaven’s “waiting just beyond our mind gate.” Is that line about spiritual fulfillment, or more about the mindset we have toward life?
Our indoctrination, our inculcation, society-at-large teach us to desire far more than we need. And the corollary to that is we don’t value those “free things” that are actually the best of all. And at the end, we are told, if we we’re good we get to go to heaven. Where there is what? The details are sketchy. The whole notion is sketchy. The image that comes down is pretty boring, if not horrifying in what is missing: everything in the world! Heaven is right here. Hell, too, sometimes. But heaven on Earth rules most of the time. This is where the action is. Only our mental barriers keep us from embracing it.
Q: Would you say that there’s been one personal experience or story in your life that led you to this view of happiness and life’s meaning, or at least informed the writing of this song?
I think I slowly came to this orientation of loving the world. To me that’s the highest spirituality. If love is the most esteemed state, then what else could it be? How can you claim to be “spiritual” if you aren’t fully vested in loving the world, much less out there hating on things. Yet I still hadn’t fully figured out the Meaning of Life. Even as I discovered that other explorers of this topic had utterly failed to include “life” in their meaning of “life,” I was still stuck as to what this meant. I didn’t immediately grasp the rather obvious implication. Shortly later I was reading about how Thomas Jefferson had changed the words that would appear in the American Declaration of Independence from English philosopher John Locke’s original trio of “life, liberty and property” to “life, liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.” And it clicked. What is life and liberty for? Not property, that’s for sure. How many life forms own property? They all have life and some form of “liberty,” but do they pursue happiness? Yes! Each and every one of them, all the time. What is life for? As I write in the song, “The Story of Now,” the Universe gives no guarantees, just the chance to pursue happiness. To me, that’s an incredibly beautiful thing. What an amazing Universe.
Q: You said this song is your most crucial song. What makes this song so different to you from everything else you have?
Well, it’s definitely one of my most important songs. My album, “Head to Heart,” which I call a “Revolutionary Manifesto in Song,” is essentially a condensation of my worldview. But “The Meaning of Life” probably comes closest to summing it up in a single song.
Q: As I listened to this song, it seemed to say that we’re supposed to find our happiness inside ourselves, then let others find it too. How do you apply the philosophy of that song to life, in general?
I have another song on the “Head to Heart” album called “Eldorado,” where the hero goes off in search of gold (i.e. “happiness”) and never finds it, until he searches inward and discovers “Inside is where hides Eldorado.” If we allow the fickle, confused and tangled human world to define what is worthy (like gold or beauty or fame or coolness) and encourage us to desire this or that which we do not need, we are bound to have a hard time on the pursuit of happiness. Taking stock of the blessings we receive with each new sunrise, reveling in the living experience for itself, and doing our best to become the best form of ourselves, which is going to involve helping others and getting out in nature, we take back power from “culture” to guide our quest, and can better steer toward higher goals, always keeping in mind that the view from the mountaintop is grand but it’s the trail up and down that is the real adventure.
Q: You said happiness is intentional and a doing thing. Do you find people are ever distracted from the happy life by external pressures? How do you refocus?
There are so many false alleys out there in society that can keep us from the realer pursuit of happiness. Distractions abound foir sure. Some of these seem benign such as most of what is on our screens. These are great time-suckers. Others are money-suckers. Some are time AND money suckers. Then there are the soul-suckers. I include religion in this group. Religion is not spirituality. It is anti-spirituality, for the most part. It captures the would-be true seeker and sequesters them in a cul-de-sac of belief, having “faith” in someone else’s depiction of what is important in life, most of which is false and has nothing to do with what meaning and happiness are all about.
To break free of all these “suckers,” you have to get away from them and back to the true and the real. That will be found inside yourself and outside in nature, not in any book or edifice or congregation of people.
Q: There’s such a sense of positivity in this song, and yet it’s not like it’s this totally easy thing to stay on track in life. How do you keep motivated and maintain that sense of joy in your own journey?
Well, it is a process, a quest. Joy, happiness are states of being, landing spots along the journey. You’re not always going to be joyful. There will be pain. There will be suffering. There will be sorrow. There will be loss. Yet, in a strange way, these don’t take away from the living experience, they add to it! They infuse it with even more meaning. It’s like that trail up the mountain. It’s going to give you grief. At the very least, it’s going to make your muscles ache. Or it may trip you, it may scratch you, it may break your leg. Maybe a bear comes out and eats you! And once you reach the top, if you ever do, it’s going to punish you on the way down, too. Yet the adventure, the experiences along the way, win or lose, are where the meaning is.
I think as you align yourself with this orientation, these values, it becomes easier to stay on the pursuit of happiness, and get right back on ASAP when you temporarily get knocked off it.
Q: What kind of effect do you hope The Meaning of Life will have on listeners after they’ve listened to the track?
Well, I guess I hope they’ll think about it, and do a deep dive of self reflection and examination to determine what their disposition is regarding this whole “meaning of life” concept. What does life, itself, mean to them? What could be the meaning and purpose of not just theirs but all life? Is it some specific thing, or some specific person, or a bunch of “stuff” that happiness is based upon? Are they in control of their “pursuit,” or is someone or something else really in charge? Are they blazing their own path to happiness, or being led by the nose by others, whether social, commercial, religious or whatever.
Q: Lastly, if you could give one piece of advice to an individual searching for their path based on what you’ve learned, what would that be?
Open your body, your heart, your mind, your spirit to this amazing, beautiful world. Revel in the beauty and blessings we have all around us. Fall in love with it all. Love is the way. The more you love in the world, the deeper your spirituality. The best pathway to sustainable happiness is paved with love.
