What kind of life are we leaving behind?

Hey,

I hope you’re doing well! I’m somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean as I’m flying back from Frankfurt where I landed 30 hours ago. Those flash trips are pretty insane and crazy, especially this one since I was going through one of those weeks rushing between the studio and the pressing plant all week long! I even booked my hotel room right before crashing into bed on Thursday night as my reminder did his one and only job — reminding me not to be homeless in Frankfurt...! 

I woke up on Friday and rushed to the pressing plant to organize the weekend and answer countless emails but mainly to load a delivery I had to do in Montreal for a band that had a launch party event that same evening! Left with a van loaded with boxes and shipping bags, of course, in a rush not to miss a beat in a city where traffic has been a part of its fabric since the quiet revolution. 

Artists being artists, some complications occurred with the delivery, and then I rushed to the airport to realize I left without my carry-on luggage…! So here I am, still precisely dressed up exactly as I was on that Friday morning, heading back to Montreal! I need a day off! 

Funny enough, none of those things are what I'll remember from this week.

I'll remember a friend quietly leaving a cancer rehabilitation center before sunrise just so we could spend a day together. I'll remember conversations that slowed time.

I'll remember standing in front of paintings that have been asking humanity the same questions for over 450 years.

I'll remember being reminded that life isn't measured by how much we accomplish but by how deeply we're present while we're living it.

🎧 Music I’m listening to

SUUNS - 2020

I spent my entire week with Sef where we both worked at the pressing plant and ended our evenings working in a studio of ours we established at the church! Our creative crib, we like to call it, and this week, SUUNS have been part of our creative soundtrack! 

Ben is spending his entire days working remotely with Alex and Miss Isabel does the same from Virginia! So amazing to finalize Alex’s new album in three different countries and 2 continents at the same time! We’ve never been such a tight unit even if we’re so far from each other! 

Can’t wait for next Monday, where we’ll all be together in Tangier to work on Alex’s new record. Yes, loads of new music on the way!!!

Listen to the Missive Playlist

📖 Reading highlight I’m pondering

“Sloth makes you powerless
and dries your nerves
so that you become incapable
of doing anything."
Pieter Bruegel

Right after the shipping was done at 9am, Marcus and I rushed to downtown Frankfurt for an entire day of great memories, loud laughter, museums, coffees, and long walks where amazing conversations would occur. 

After a coffee and croissant at our Frankfurt HQ coffee place, we decided to walk up to the museum, as there were two exhibitions on art through the centuries we wanted to take a look at! 

The incredibly thoughtful work of Pieter Bruegel literally impacted me on every possible level. Watching such social insight from the 1500s truly was striking to me! What fascinated me wasn't simply how old those paintings are. It was realizing that people haven't really changed.

Bruegel painted marketplaces filled with people living beside one another without necessarily seeing one another. Everyone busy. Everyone occupied. Everyone caught inside their own little story.

Five centuries later, we've replaced horses with smartphones, but I sometimes wonder if we've become any better at truly seeing each other.

We document everything. We witness very little.

Maybe that's why spending a whole day walking with Marcus felt so meaningful. No agenda. No destination. Just conversations. Presence. Maybe that's what we'll remember when everything else disappears.

🎙️ Podcast That Inspired Me

American Hysteria - 90s Angel Craze 

I’m almost done reading Melissa Auf Der Maur's book, in which she shares a lot about dreams, visions, night visits, haunted New Orleans houses, and, of course, angels and how the universe communicates important things to you when you’re listening. Since she’s older than me, I’ve been attracted to this 90s decade that is fascinated by angels! 

Whether it's Melissa writing about angels, Bruegel painting ordinary people, or simply spending hours talking with Marcus, I realized they all ask the same thing:

Are we paying attention?

Maybe inspiration doesn't arrive because extraordinary things happen.

Maybe it arrives because we finally slow down enough to notice them.

📸 My Picture Of The Week 

Marcus and I! 

As I shared last time and will repeat it here, this world is a better place with you in it…! Keep up the fight, brother! You’re a true inspiration to me and to so many! Thank you for allowing me to spend these incredible hours with you learning so much from and about you! 

May your soul be free from every physical suffering you’re enduring since, as you know, life truly is worth living to the fullest!

💬 Shared in the Long Shadows Chat this week

I was at the Lufthansa lounge at 7am this Sunday morning when Alex interrupted my Sunday morning coffee with a simple message:

"Go get yourself a whisky. I have a toast."

Standing there at seven in the morning with a glass I certainly wasn't expecting to be holding, he shared these words:

"To live goes way beyond breathing, eating, and working, but is loaded with endless sufferings, which is why the greatest resilience is to live free and to create life all around us! Life creates life!"

I kept thinking about those words for the rest of my flight.

Maybe that's exactly what this week was.

Not a week of airports. Not a week of deadlines. Not a week of forgotten luggage. It was a week filled with people creating life in one another.

Marcus did. Alex did. Sef, Ben, Isabel, and I are doing it every day from thousands of kilometers away.

That's what The Club has always been about.

We don't simply consume music. We create life for one another.

And perhaps that's one of the greatest privileges we can ever experience.

Let’s be great to one another! 

Your friend and Chief Operator, 
Jeff 

PS: Looking forward to seeing all your wonderful pictures of your packages!!!