Oumuamua and the Fermi Paradox

illustration by paul sahre

If the universe is unimaginably large, why aren’t there more signs of extraterrestrial life? 

The question was made famous by Enrico Fermi, who at lunch one day in 1950 turned to his colleagues and asked, where are they? 

With billions of stars in our stellar neighborhood, there’s a high probability some of the planets surrounding at least some of those stars must be Earth-like. Chances are, at least a portion of those life-fostering planets must have developed civilizations with the capability to leave their planet, just as we have.

Since there exists many stars similar to our Sun, but that are billions of years older, the theory holds that humans should have been able to detect some sign of an alien civilization. 

But we never have—at least, not convincingly.

The strongest argument against the Fermi Paradox, at least according to Avi Loeb, author of the book Extraterrestrials, unfolded over 11 days in 2017. That October, a telescope in Maui captured an exotic spec careening across the sky. They called it ‘Oumuamua (which translates roughly to the Hawaiian for “scout”). Scientists assumed it was a comet or asteroid. Loeb disagrees. 

The former chair of Astrophysics at Harvard, Loeb has reason to believe ‘Oumuamua was an alien craft propelled by a lightsail — a thin reflective object that harnesses light to push a vehicle across space in the way a sailboat is pushed by the wind. 

What evidence does Loeb have? Three compelling facts. 

First, ‘Oumuamua was not shaped like a normal comet or asteroid. It looked something like a pancake the size of a football field. 

Second, its trail was minimal. For a comet going four times faster than average, scientists expected there to be a large tail of debris behind ‘Oumuamua — but no carbon-based molecules or space dust were detected.

Lastly, ‘Oumuamua was moving away from the sun much faster than gravity’s pull would provide. What provided the extra push? 

david steinberg

Planetary sailing

In 2015, Loeb worked on a project to bring a tiny probe to Alpha Centauri, a star system about four lightyears from our Sun. He and a team of researchers worked through several possible designs, and eventually landed on the lightsail — a craft propelled by a strong laser light. That laser could ignite in short, powerful bursts, which would propel the craft up to 100 million miles an hour — a fifth the speed of light. Moving at that speed, it would take only about nine days to reach Pluto from Earth. 

Loeb believes ‘Oumuamua may have been a craft using similar technology.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

— Carl Sagan

Whether he is correct or speculative remains to be seen. It’s certainly beyond my pay grade. By Sagan’s standard, ‘Oumuamua sadly falls short. But it does give one hope. 

It’s only recently that we’ve developed the technology to have telescopes as powerful as the Pan-Starrs1, which originally detected ‘Oumuamua. The object was passing at a distance from us roughly equal to our distance from the Sun. Now that we have this level of tech, Loeb expects sightings of unusual objects to become more commonplace. 

Perhaps the reason we haven’t seen any alien life up until now is because we didn’t yet have the technology to detect it.

Epicureans vs Stoics: two approaches to living

chris otchy

There were under the early Roman Empire two rival schools which practically divided the field between them—the Epicureans and the Stoics.

Epicureans are those who followed the example of Epicurus, a philosopher devoted to the study of happiness. He believed the greatest good was to seek modest, sustainable pleasure. Those who follow him feel life is short and therefore to be enjoyed. They indulge in all the sensorial things in life – food, drink, massage, fine clothes and fine wine. They relish in all the world has to offer, and try to enjoy life to the fullest. In extreme forms, Epicureans can be sappy and overly sentimental. Living in the wake of their emotions and passions, they can also be quite unpredictable.

Stoics on the other hand are people who refrain from indulging their senses. They aim to be detached emotionally, experiencing neither extreme pleasure nor pain. They lead lives of restraint and moderation… lives of quiet desperation indeed. Seneca, one of the most famous Stoics, was a lifelong teetotaler and chastised the vices of money, liquor, and materialism. He abhorred all inebriation. He would only take dry, stale bread for food and glorified the virtues of roughshod, simple clothing and cold showers. The Stoics idealize temperance, sobriety, courage, and justice. They recognized that certain emotions—anger, fear, resentment, and envy—are useless expenditures of energy and get one nowhere. Therefore they try to not waste their time with those feelings, and rise above them in order to enjoy life in a more raw manner. Moderation—doing the right thing at the right time in the right amount—is their modus operandi. Like the early Christians, they think that every person’s task is overcome oneself and be stronger than one’s base impulses. Spock is the ideal Stoic — devoted to logic and reason, somewhat cold, detached, half-human and emotionless.

“Let us set the axe to the root, that we being purged of our passions may have a peaceable mind.”

— thomas a kempis

Up until this point in life, I have been very much an Epicurean. I indulge my senses. I give into emotionality. I recognize life is brief and often painful, and therefore try to enjoy what life has to offer. I try to live in a moderately stylish manner, as my means allow. 

But as I read the meditations of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, I see the wisdom in this way of life. I see how their sense of pratyahara, that detachment from your emotions, can really serve you in making the most reasonable decisions in life.

What good has come from anger and envy? None. And so by acting in a manner that is removed from those emotions, I see how I could live in a much more beneficial manner to myself and those around me. 

Nothing in excess. Doing the right thing in the right amount at the right time — that resonates. It reminds me of the Buddhist principle of the Middle Way. 

Am I going to start eating stale bread and taking cold showers? Not likely, not everyday at least. (Though I do occasionally take cold showers in light of the multiple health benefits). But see now that taking a stoical approach to life has its merits, especially when we are faced with difficult circumstances, like loss and the death of loved ones. 

Taking a stoical approach allows one to not indulge in sentimentality, but rather to move on and continue being productive. Yes, there is certainly a time for sadness and remembering and mourning, but only to a point. After a short period of time, there really is nothing you can do about many of the terrible situations we face. At the end of the day, fear and frustration and sadness are a waste of your time and energy. Concentrate on what you have right now in front of you and what you can do with it. That’s how you move on.

“Even the wealthy are continually met and frustrated by difficult times and situations. It is in no man’s power to have whatever he wants. But it is in his power not to wish for what he hasn’t got, and cheerfully make the most of things that do come his way.”

— Seneca

Stoicism tells us to do the job in front of us rather than thinking we’re better than our tasks or the things we’re facing, or that life is unfair. Seneca tells us it is, and we’re no better and no worse than any other human, so get down to the business of living. The task that seems beneath you, the coworker who annoys you, the job you feel you’re better than—nonsense. Excellence is what we should aspire to.

“We are what we repeatedly do,” so said Aristotle, “therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

All our goals are attainable by making excellence our goal in everything we do. How you do one thing is how you do everything. Words to live by.  

Leading and Following

elena de soto

“[One of the troubles that beset us as humans] is the way our lives are guided by others’ example. In this manner, we lust after what isn’t ours and what we don’t actually need. We think we must do the things that everyone else is doing, have the things everyone else has, simply because they are doing them and have them. We are attracted by wealth, pleasures and good looks, and we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, and disgrace. We would do better to not crave the former, not be afraid of the latter.”

— Seneca

Who's the Genius - the Artist or the Observer?

jean-michel basquiat

“All human creativity is a desperate attempt to occupy the brief space or endless gap between birth and death.”

What’s the difference between good and bad art? 

I’m reading A Year with Swollen Appendices, Brian Eno’s 1997 memoir. (In February, a 25-year anniversary edition is being re-published.) 

It contains a terrific essay about placebo cures. Eno explains how though there are believers and critics, the fact remains — placebos cure about 30% of patients scientifically administered the false cures. 

He then recounts the story of Melody Maker music critic Richard Williams, who in the 1970s was sent a John Lennon + Yoko Ono record to review. The first side was normal enough—five traditionally arranged songs. The other side was more unusual—20 minutes of a pure sine wave. Just a long, unwavering, unaccompanied tone. 

Williams wrote his review, concentrating the bulk of it on side B, noting how bold Lennon and Ono were for putting out such brashly stark, minimal music. He later learned the second side was a test tone, used to calibrate and detect abnormalities in record players. 

Was Williams’ experience with the test tone any diminished, knowing the sound over which he rhapsodized was unintentional? 

What composes a satisfactory art experience? What makes it good for some observers and poor for others? I’ve explored this topic before.

Thinking about the believer and the critic, it becomes clear—it’s less about the stimuli and more about the experience going on inside the patient/observer. 

“We can say that there is nothing absolute about the aesthetic value of a Rembrandt or a Mozart or a Basquiat,” Eno writes, just as there’s nothing special about the sugar pill the doctor gives the anxiety-ridden office worker. In the end, anyone who can convince you by any means, including outrageous fakery, that what you are about to experience is THE CURE to your issues can be called a healer. Anyone who can convince you that this thing in front of you IS art is by definition an artist.  

Art says as much about us as it does about the artist. We as observers believe the myth. We drink the Kool-Aid. We willingly give the art its power and we’re under its spell. It’s a dance between the artist and the lovers, the creators and the observers.

“Is the act of getting attention a sufficient act for an artist, or is that a job description?”

— Brian Eno

Living Music - Don Cherry, 1978

Screenshot from “Don Cherry Swedish TV Documentary 1978”

The Don Cherry documentary created by Swedish television in 1978 is a wonderful exposition of the jazz musician and his approach to life. The soft spoken man was best known for being a trumpeter with some of the great jazzers of the 1950s-70s, but the film shows there was more to Cherry than his rapid fire trumpet. His whole approach to music and to life was both beautiful and radical.

Just viewing bits and pieces of the doc, you quickly pick up that Cherry was more than just a horn player, or a piano player, or a flutist, or a bird caller. The guy’s approach to life was music. Anything and everything he came across was music. Life was a song and Cherry sang it out loud.

 I especially enjoyed how he viewed competition in music.

“I don’t believe in competition in music. I don’t think of music as better or worse. It’s just different… and that brings a lot of ego and keeps musicians from coming together, because everyone wants to feel like they’re doing something different. Everyone wants to be an innovator. And all the innovators I’ve ever known—Coltrane, Ornette, Eric Dolphy—they all were playing their music and trying to develop in music. It wasn’t to try to be an innovator. They were innovators but they weren’t intentionally trying to be innovators.”

— Don Cherry

Wonderful. The doc also features some killer shots of NYC in the 1970s… worth a shot.

What is Ambient Music?

photo by dan sealey

I’ve been self-describing my music as “ambient” for the past few years, simply out of habit. It’s a convenient reference point for instrumental music with little or no percussion. But “ambient” is quite a loaded term. It brings up connotations of relaxing synth and guitar timbres, well drenched in ‘verb and delay, mainly used to aid concentration, focus, relaxation or Eastern practices.

I love that type of music and sure, some of the music I create could be accurately defined or categorized that way. But more and more, I feel uneasy with the term.

The music I’ve made on Recursive, and definitely the music I’m releasing on Merlin’s Voice really doesn’t fit into that mold. Some of it may be light on percussion, and yes it features synths and guitar textures that tend to be a bit wetter on FX--but it’s not exactly relaxing. There’s a certain density to it, a certain darkness that would probably distract a person trying to meditate. Listening to it now, trying to remove myself from the act of creating it, it sounds a bit more like experimental dance music.

I’ve recently come across artists with sounds similar to myself calling their music “modern classical,” which is a more accurate description, but still is not quite right. “Classical” evokes the idea of classically trained musicians, extremely proficient on their traditional instruments, and well versed in the arrangement and stylistic tendencies of everyone from Mozart to Cage.

What we’re doing is more like creating sonic textures that evoke certain moods. We’re mood merchants. The music may be relaxing, or it may be dark and noisy and aggressive—what it does is communicate a mood or a feeling. But what music doesn’t do that?

What is the correct term to describe this music? Do we really need one?

Back in the early 2000s, I was in a band that made retro-sounding electro pop. The term we all resisted at the time is the descriptive term that actually stuck – electroclash.

Perhaps time will define this ambient-ish music in the same way. For now, I’m calling it experimental mood music.

Why do some artists fly and others flail?

Why are we attracted to the music we like? What makes the art we appreciate and consume interesting to us? What distinguishes it from the art and media we dislike? When art doesn’t speak to us, why is that? Is it ‘bad’ art? Can we blame the artist, or is it a fault of the viewer—a failure to ‘see’ ourselves in the work?

I have a theory that all art is valid, and can even be popular—it just needs to find the right audience. It needs to find its ideal group of people, and once it does, it can blossom in that community of like-minded folks. But finding those people takes work.

Let’s say there are two artists, Poppy and Margaret. They both make very similar brands of competent folk music, play the guitar beautifully, and even sing in a similar, attractive intonation.

Poppy has one million followers on her streaming platform of choice, Margaret has 70.

Putting aside the politics of streaming platforms, what’s the difference between these two artists? On the surface, the only difference is that Poppy is very popular, and Margaret is not. 

But why? Does it come down to marketing, PR, promotion? Perhaps. Or is it the way Poppy executes her music—the chord changes she uses, the tones she employs, the subject matter of her songs? Does Poppy’s art speak to people in a way that Margaret’s does not?

What can Margaret do to achieve a wider audience? Invest more heavily in promotion? Perform in more venues? Gain wider exposure by fostering more relationships, investing in playlists and radio? Does she just need more runway, and to keep on doing what she’s doing, or is there something inherent to the music that she makes that just doesn’t resonate with people?

In the abstract, it’s impossible to judge. But this is a real conundrum for many artists, and all humans, frankly. How do you get along in life without comparing what you do to others—and is that comparison even valid? Can we listen to it, should we listen to it—or would it be better for artists to just put their heads down and keep plugging away at creating beautiful work?

What is the balance between creativity and self-promotion—and at the end of the day,  which is more important?

I have a lot of questions today, and very few answers. These are things that have been bouncing around in my head for years. I still don’t have clear solutions. All I know is that when I make music, and it sounds good to me, it feels good to me. And that feeling is everything. Everything. It’s what all artists are chasing after. And honestly, that should be enough. But it rarely is.

We want more. Artists want recognition. And that requires work—work that many of us don’t enjoy or would rather not do. Self promotion for feelers like myself is tough.

I can happily promote others. Hell, I do it professionally. But ask me to write a bio or artist statement about my most recent work… yikes. I just bottle up. The words disappear. But none of us can deny that this is a really important part of this whole artist thing. You got to get out there. You have to represent yourself because no one else will. At least, not until you can find the right kind of person and pay them what they ask.

So today I’m working on finding that balance, and finding an audience, and making work that speaks to people. It’s all about amplifying the voice and finding the people who want to hear it. 

Acknowledging our shadow selves -- and tapping into their power

Photo: Martino Pietropoli

“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

— C.G. Jung

We all know things about ourselves we rarely choose to acknowledge or exhibit publicly. Our inner selves are intimate parts of our consciousness that may or may not be expressed in our dealings with the world at large. And yet, they are important to who we are as people. Without them, we would only get part way to understanding our true nature. 

C.G. Jung makes a clear distinction between these different elements of our selves by calling the primary personality we show the world our “No. 1,” and our secondary, hidden personality our “No. 2.”  

“No. 1 was the bearer of light,” he remarks in his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, “No. 2 followed him like a shadow… Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

With No. 1, we must go forward “into the world of study, moneymaking, responsibilities, entanglements, errors, submissions, and defeats.” 

No. 2 is a link to our more primitive animal instincts, which are suppressed in our early development and superseded by the conscious mind. But our shadowy side is nevertheless critical. Jung writes No. 2 is inextricably tied to the creation of dreams, both in terms of life aspirations, and our sleeping reveries. 

Many of us choose to disregard No. 2 as the refuse of the mind—but such a view is foolish. If, as Jung says, our unconscious is composed of, “everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment thinking; everything of which I was once conscious but have now forgotten,” then No. 2 arguably has a deeper knowledge of the greater world than our primary personality.

How can we tap into the power of our shadow selves? The quickest way, Jung contends, is by listening to it when it speaks to us through our dreams, and carefully analyzing their contents.

Our No. 2 uses the same timeless language as myth, religion, and legend—with imagery and symbols that our conscious minds may find confounding. It’s dense, richly-layered material, but worth our time if we wish to understand our deepest drives, desires, and neuroses. “Dreams are,” Jung writes, “after all, compensations for the conscious attitude.” 

I used to have trouble remembering my dreams. Then I started writing them down every morning as soon as I woke up. I’m genuinely surprised how much more I remember now. It’s as if I’ve given my No. 2 the microphone, and now he’s starting to speak. 

More over, I’ve found that if I pose a question to my unconscious mind before I fall asleep at night, the dreams I do remember bear some deeper wisdom or commentary on the topic. I suggest anyone wanting to tap into their unconscious give this a try. 

No. 1 and No. 2 are inextricably linked—two parts of a single mind. Why not try to use this connection to benefit your wellbeing and goals? I’ll leave you with this choice quote.

“Although we human beings have our own personal life, we are yet in large measure the representatives, the victims and promoters of a collective spirit whose years are counted in centuries. We can well think all our lives long that we are following our noses, and may never discover that we are, for the most part, supernumeries on the stage of the world theater.”

— C.G. Jung

We're all just amateurs, and why that's a good thing

blazing sun, playa cerritos by c.o.

Being an amateur is important. It’s not a mark of shame, it’s just reality. That’s where we all are when we start out—amateurs. We’ve got very little experience, but we have heart, and passion, and very defined palettes. That’s why beginners are in a terribly good position. You can always get more experience, but you can’t easily manufacture (or beat) pure and genuine drive coupled with good taste. 

Austin Kleon has covered this pretty succinctly in Show Your Work, but it bears repeating. 

“Because they have little to lose, amateurs are willing to try anything and share the results. They take chances, experiment, and follow their whims. Sometimes, in the process of doing things in an unprofessional way, they make new discoveries… Amateurs are lifelong learners, and they make a point of learning in the open so that others can learn from their failures and successes.”

— Austin Kleon

There is a very real latent energy or untapped potential that lies inside each of us, if we are open to it. If we listen to the little voice. And once we start listening, it begins to get louder and louder… and if we foster it—if we let it get loud enough to be heard by others—then real changes starts to happen. It all starts with listening to ourselves and believing in what we hear. 

I re-watched Rushmore for the 100th time last week and re-discovered this. 

from shoot angle

Just because we don’t have experience in something and feel like we have no idea what we’re doing doesn’t mean we can’t make a meaningful contribution. 

“I have no concept of knowing how to be a musician at all what-so-ever... I couldn’t even pass Guitar 101.”

— Kurt Cobain

The very act of creation is sometimes so alienating and strange, especially when we begin to craft a discipline around it and force ourselves to do it when we don’t feel like it. That’s when we start facing the inner obstructions—our limitations, our frustrations, our distractions, our addictions… It can all come out when we sit down and try to do that one thing. This is why creation can be difficult. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the struggle.

“Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position. ”

— Stephen King

Good craft doesn’t always feel great at the moment we’re bringing it into the world—ask any mother around. But we keep doing it with knowledge our skill and end product will improve with time.

MTV Generation of Heck

I just watched the 2015 Kurt Cobain documentary Montage of Heck, which is probably the most satisfying biopic of the late star and of Nirvana, at least as far as I have seen. Highly recommended (at time of writing, it’s streaming on HBO Max). 

While I applaud Gus Van Sant’s effort to depicting a misunderstood and alienated musician who might or might not be Kurt Cobain in Last Days, I ultimately didn’t really connect with that film at all. Montage of Heck does a great job at showing the sadness of Cobain’s early life, his rise to stardom in a scenius of forward thinking musicians and bands, and the tragedy of his later life, addiction, and suicide.

Aside from reminding me how utterly earth shattering Nirvana was in the 1990s, both culturally and musically, I really appreciated that they had some cool animated sequences showing (what the filmmakers imagine) his lone songwriting process might have been. I’m not sure if it’s at all accurate, but seeing a young Kurt playing guitar on a couch by himself, screaming lyrics in a closet, and whispering weird noises into to a tape machine really set me thinking about the 10,000 hours  he put in finding his voice, writing songs, and defining a sound that would ultimate change rock music forever. Nirvana and the grunge movement was kind of the last big thing to happen to rock and roll before its ultimate self destruction. 

Speaking of self-destruction, the MTV appearances in this movie reminded me of how gargantuan that TV station was in the 1990s. I mean, MTV truly was a force of nature back then. MTV controlled youth culture to a degree that is really hard to understand for people that were born after 2000. I can’t even think of a modern analog. TMZ, BuzzFeed maybe? But those comparisons really don’t get at the power MTV held, though.

Then there was Tabitha Soren, Kurt Loder, Bill Belamy, Riki Rachtman… they were more than just news anchors or VJs—they were kind of celebrities in their own right and part of the scene. MTV also organized a lot of events that artists performed at, including the Unplugged series, the movie and music award shows, and more. MTV was a cultural behemoth that didn’t survive the Extinction Event that was the internet. 

Lastly, Montage of Heck is a great encapsulation of what celebrity looked like pre-internet vs post. By and large, artists and celebrities now are PR machines, with well oiled social media content engines pumping out on-brand messaging 24/7/365. They are on, all the time, and their look and style and sound is very calculated, at least it feels that way to me.

Nirvana, and bands in general in that pre-Internet era, had a much more punk ethos. There are some really great interview moments in the film where it’s clear the band is intoxicated and really doesn’t give a crap that the cameras are rolling. It’s refreshing to see that. I wish there was more of that today, to be honest. 

We know so little

We know so little about ourselves. Just enough to want to be almost anyone else. 

Downsizing and upscaling

This week has been one of re-focusing my creative practice. 

I am pairing down my modular set up (it’s always changing, so that’s nothing new) and at the same time I re-acquired the Elektron Octatrack MkII. 

The OT MkI was kinda what got me back into making music after taking about 10 years or so off. The MkII actually feels quite different, which I like. It feels better, smoother. The MkI was a bit clunky. I noticed that the moment I unboxed it. It didn’t have a nice “feel” to the buttons and sliders. There was a certain… clicky nature to it that didn’t feel as “put together” as other equipment. I immediately compared it to the MPC 2000, which was the first “professional” piece of audio gear I got early on in my career. It was super put together and felt solid in comparison to the OT. The software and workflow, too, was vastly different from the MPC, which was also a sampler, but one that approached sampling and audio manipulation from a very different angle. 

That said, I kept the Octatrack MkI for 5+ years and used it extensively. After moving to SF, I did have a period with the Maschine, but the fact that it used it’s own software that wasn’t quite a full-fledged DAW always put me off. It had weird limitations in terms of importing samples and using it to, say record guitar or outside instruments. 

The Octatrack had an insane learning curve, and was also limited in different ways. That led me to Ableton, which is by far the most unlimited instrument out there. You can do anything and everything with it. But playing with hardware is a hell of a lot more fun. 

Getting Modular

Starting off with modular was like a revelation. It forced me to think about music differently. I was finally collaborating with something outside myself. 

I’ve now made 3 albums with the modular, in conjunction with Ableton, and I really am proud of them. But now I want to move on. 

Coming back to the Octatrack, I’m seeing it as a different tool. Before, I was basically treating it like a DAW, where I was trying to do EVERYTHING in a track with those 8 tracks. Now that I have other synths to work with, and I want to try to use the Octatrack more like a tool for looping, sequencing, sampling and processing audio and midi. I’m excited to get into it, and especially to use it in conjunction with the OP-1, Cocoquantus, and modular.