I’m offered a gig with friends. The gig requires me to bring a keyboard, show up and play high energy music for 3 hours, and be a good hang. For all of this, I’ll make $75.

Most musicians will look at this and think: good hang with friends, sure, why not!

Most purchasers of music will think: they get to play, it’s exposure, why not!

But I am not most musicians or most purchasers.

I cannot make decisions like a normal person. My parents gave me a high quality Jesuit institution, which means discernment is required. I’ll do this process now, as I do it for every major life decision, and I’ll demonstrate it as I go.

First Principle The purpose of human life is to move towards unconditional love with one’s self and the world. Everything we have is to be used to push towards that unconditional love and celebrate it.

The Process

1. Clarify the decision: Should I spend 3 hours of my time playing high energy music in exchange for $75 and some fun with friends?
2. Meditate: The first principle is to move towards unconditional love. Unconditional love would be having the experience of being loved and being able to love wihtout needing anything to change.
3. Gather and weigh data:
   1. Weather: It’s -27C out with windchill. There’s snow and salt on the ground. My gloves ripped on the middle finger of my left hand — I’m left handed.
   2. Time: It’s a 30-minute drive, probably 45-minute with traffic. Times two, that’s 60-90 minutes time spent in a car. I’ll probably listen to a podcast, maybe that’s okay.
   3. Money: Well we have to think of the wear and tear on my vehicle, mileage, and we need to wonder how the effects of the cold on my immune system and potential future costs — I don’t apply a discount rate on the future!
   4. Music: It’s high energy swing music, that means I’ll need to burn calories playing loudly and with gusto. In addition, I’ll need to smile and look like I’m having a good time, which I probably will, so let’s discount that. I’ll be sight reading, so that’s cognitive effort, more calories burned by the brain.
   5. The Hang: 90% of the gig is the hang — what it’s like to be around and play with the people you’re playing with. That’s important.
   6. The money: I don’t work for free! $75 is… low, but we are helping people have a good time, so maybe that outweighs the dollars? But there’s the car and the gas and the wear and tear and the time away from home.
4. Attend to interior movements: as I’m thinking about this decision, I need to consider what’s happening to my thoughts and desires and feelings — well… now that I’m thinking about thinking I don’t know how I think about it, which means I probably need to think more and discern more…
5. Imaginative testing: I’m going to live the decision as if it’s happened. I can already feel myself cussing at how cold it is and wondering why I do this to myself both as I get into the car when it hasn’t heated up enough and as I exit the car when I feel again how cold it is and I’ve just started warming up.

The End After completing such a rigorous process you decide to act. Which option (a) playing or (b) staying at home where it’s home brings me closer to the experience of being able to love myself and others without needing anything to change?

Would I happily trade unconditional love of self for a great hang, an amount of money that could get me one avocado toast and a short Starbucks drink, some gas, and play music that was written in the 1920s and hasn’t changed since in weather that may or may not be weather god’s punishing the Milwaukee metropolitan area?

Yes. Obviously.

Last modified on 2026-02-01