“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Consider your favorite song. What is it that you like about it?

Is it the melody? Maybe it’s the baseline, or the chorus. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of simple chords and vocals.

No matter what it is, your favorite music is only made possible by one thing.

Silence.

It is the silence between the notes which makes music audibly pleasant. And without a balance between silence and noise, music would not be possible at all.

And so it goes with all things.

Life requires a balance of complements. It is within this balance that we find all of the things which make us joyful, and all of the things which make our hearts weep. We cannot have the light without the dark, and we cannot have peace without chaos.

But these are all part of the same whole—they cannot exist on their own.

And be sure, they exist within and around us always.

I’m often asked about my demeanor, particularly because my occupation generally requires someone of a personality type that I do not possess.

Bartenders and those of us in the hospitality industry are typically thought of as welcoming, outgoing, overly friendly and the like. But me being an artist and a writer, I’m naturally introspective and reserved.

When I’m asked why I’m so calm and quiet, I can only think of one response that makes any sense to me, and that is—you have to balance peace with chaos. When a surface is calm, what lies beneath is often far from tranquil.

But this goes much deeper.

For me, being naturally introverted is balanced by pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and tending a bar does give a great push. You could easily say, through turmoil I’ve found peace.

And we are all balanced by some mechanism of this sort. As is everything.

Just look at the waters of Earth.

Watch as the river ebbs and flows. Watch the lake chop under wind and become mirror-still on calmer days. Look upon the sea as the tides crash and roll, as if angered by the storm. Then watch as the sky clears, and the water is again rendered soft.

These are the compliments of life, and we live by and through their entanglement.

We walk against the wind only to be pushed forward by it seconds later. We are saddened by tragedy, but comforted by its passing. And we are moved forward by age, living, learning, experiencing life, only to return to the mind of a child.

All things must maintain balance. It is the law of the universe, the law of nature and truly, it is also the law of man—though far too many have no understanding of this.

Here, in this finite world, we must obey the laws of harmony. And we must not hold onto fear, as we are all part of this grand symphony.

Because nothing is truly separate from the whole.

We must all come to know our place within the silence between noise.

And once we discover this fire, may we all make our music…

Together.