Earlier today, fellow Gaia member cellist asked me about the "source of my inspiration." I had not thought about this in a while and cellist's question set the gears to turning.

I think there are two ways in which I draw my inspiration from the moment.  All of the underlying material on Music for Space Travel comes from live improvisations.  We may have decided on a key and a tempo to start with, but otherwise it was wide open.  The Abstract Sound has played together long enough that we know where our tastes merge; we take the music to that place and just try to allow the song to build itself.  By doing this in a studio we captured some great moments where songs were born.

I then spent about a year listening to hours and hours of material; listening for those moments that called out to me.  As a composer, I am much more interested in the melody found then the melody created.  The subtle patterns that our brain tries to impose on the unknown tend to feel more organic then a melody constructed one note at a time.  I guess I am more of a musical gardener then a musical architect.

With my gardening sheers and fertilizer in hand, I then approach the second "moment" of the arranging process.  I listen for moments where the music goes through subtle changes that seem almost motionless.  This is how I think you can create music that is interesting while not distracting.  The Abstract Sound hoped to create music that could pulse in the background for yoga practice or allow a listener to fall into it completely.  What we did not anticipate is the third way that emerged to relate to this music - the moment!

Some listeners remark that Music for Space Travel can be used as a form of listening meditation.  With all of the very subtle and slow changes it becomes a challenge to maintain your focus on the arrangement of the instruments and the subtle variations.  You may find that your mind's grasp begins to slip as thoughts intrude and images appear.  But when you return your focus to the moment you discover that something changed while the mind was away. 

This is especially true with the extra download album, Deep Space.  If you listen to the samples then you may notice that at first it sounds like a single keyboard chord slowly rising and falling.  In reality it is several electric guitars, up to eight voices at times, Tibetan singing bowls, and bouncing frequencies and loops.  All of these elements are composed to work together like a giant celestial orchestra.  When an orchestra plays, you rarely hear the individual instruments, only the collective chords - that's the idea anyway. 

When I listen intently to Deep Space there are moments where I hear each individual element and other moments where I hear elements that I know are not there!  These moments are created by the sympathy between the various frequencies and instruments.  They are my favorite part because in that moment the music creates its own music!

Clearly, I am a mystic at heart and I think the music reflects that.  Far too much of "new age" music is kind of this happy bunny-rabbit stuff where you hear crickets and the ocean at the same time.  I mean, where is that combination of sounds natural?  To me nature sounds less like the creatures in nature, but the sounds that you hear on the edge of perception; the sounds where you are unsure whether it is the wind, a far off highway, a voice from beyond, or your own mind.

Joy, fear, joy, joy, fear, joy, fear, fear, joy, joy, fear, fear, fear, joy . . .

That about sums it up. My absence on Gaia lately has been due to a variety of factors, most recently the discovery that my wife and I are pregnant.

As most of you know, I have been going through a tough time lately - trying to find a level of happiness and contentment in my professional life that only a fool would hope for. Obviously, this has fallen to the wayside for the short-term while I focus on being the best lawyer I can be and grow our nest egg before our egg nests.

I have learned something very important about myself the past few weeks. I love change. Some people fear change – they like life steady and consistent. But now I understand that the very thing making me depressed was the complete lack of change in my life. This will take years of therapy to get to the bottom of, but in a world where most distress is caused by reality not matching with ones internal desires, I realize that I am blessed with this desire for change.

All things change in nature, yet we struggle for stability amidst this never ending change. Perhaps that is why the “stable” life does not resonate with me. To me, the static life is clearly an illusion and when I try to live it I can’t help but think that this is the big lie we tell ourselves so that we don’t have to think about death. Our little boxes on the hillside are nothing more then sandbags against the flood of time. Pretty things to distract us from the vast unknown.

To be fair, I know many that can live quite happily this way. In fact, for them to embrace that the only certainty in life is death would cause significant distress. Good for them, I am happy they have found what makes them feel safe. For me, the only way to feel safe is to embrace the lack of safety and security that others shy away from. I always had to be different.

So how does this all fit into the baby-blog? What bigger agent of change is there than a child? What better reminder of the wide-eyed adventure of life than watching a new life embrace the unknown every day? Yeah, I am ready to be a parent. In fact, I think I have needed to be a parent for a long time.

I love conflict!  Conflict itself is a centrally vital part of growth and creativity.  I think that many of the responses relate less to conflict and more to the individual's judgments and emotional response to conflict.  The moon would not stay where it is were it not for the conflict between the gravity of the earth and the gravity of the sun.  The moon's gravity in turn pulls upon the ocean and creates tides.  Conflict is fundamental to our existence!

In reading other responses it appears that most who feel negative toward conflict are actually talking about their inner emotional landscape and the emotions that arise habitually in response to conflict.  Although it is difficult to change these responses, on some level we choose these reactions.  Perhaps what we hate about conflict has more to do with what we hate about ourselves then the inherent tension between conflicting ideas or perceptions.

Every solution requires a problem.  Many elements can be transformed only through the application of intense heat or pressure.  Whether it is a metal, an invention, or art - nothing can be refined to its essential form without conflict.  You might as well say "I want only Yin.  I hate Yang!"  We do not need to end conflict - we need to embrace it, to understand it, to recognize how to use it.  Ignoring it or distancing yourself from it prohibits you from understanding conflict.  Instead of riding these beautiful and dangerous rapids to a place of new tranquility, conflict becomes this annoying distraction that intrudes upon our lives until we push it away or down deep inside of ourselves.

Being calm and centered in a spa-like setting is no great achievement.  Being calm and centered in the midst of a storm - now that is a refinement of the self.

Blessings to conflict!

Jay

 

As some of you are aware, the Abstract Sound is conducting a survey regarding the use of music for the practice of yoga.  It was my hope that this would help in the creation of an album that is truly a tool for practice.  Far to often, a practitioner must conform their practice to the music.  I wondered if it was possible to create a recording that is somehow flexible and can be shaped to an individual's practice.  The album, Music for Space Travel, is 70 minutes in length and begins and ends with gentle sonic washes.  In addition to the album, which will be available on CD and by download in August, there are another 40 minutes of ambient sonic washes for people to download.  These tracks continue where the album ends so that a listener could add time for an extended corpse pose or use it separately for deep stretch or meditation.

The Survey - Some of the questions in the survey asked for written answers.  Because many people addressed specific issues that I think are important I will report on and explore the more qualitative results in a separate blog.  You may find you disagree with some of the results, or that your yogic tradition was underrepresented.  The survey will remain available online for another month so that you can add your voice to the discussion.  To take or view the survey, go here.

What style(s) of yoga do you practice?

So far the survey has about fifty respondents.  One of the questions asked was what styles of yoga do you practice.  56.5% of respondents selected Hatha yoga with Ashtanga, Iyengar, and Vinyasa yoga all ranking above 30%.  Kundalini, Kripalu, Bikram and Power yoga were chosen by more than 10% of respondents and Jivamukti, White Lotus, Ishta, and Ananda yoga styles were also mentioned among others.

How many years have you been practicing/teaching?

21.7% of respondents reported that they had been practicing yoga for 9-12 years with 17.4% of respondents practicing yoga for over 20 years!  Slightly more than half of the respondents also taught yoga.  Out of those instructors, 20.2% have more than 15 years of teaching experience.  A third of practitioners reported that they have practiced yoga between 0-6 years.  This broad cross-section of beginners and experienced yogis is exactly what I had hoped for.

What is your favorite type of music to listen to?

I was curious if there was a specific genre of music that resonated with the community but these results were as diverse as the individuals that participated in the survey.  "Electronica (Downtempo)" had the highest response with 10.9% of respondents reporting that it was their favorite type of music to listen to.  What was surprising (and refreshing) was that "Folk," "Eastern," "Indie," and "Rock" all had a higher percentage of respondents than "New Age."  For some reason, I forgot to add Jazz to the list.  You can see from the artists listed on my profile that Jazz is an important genre of music for me and several respondents wrote in Jazz under the "Other" category.

What effect, if any, do you feel music has on your practice of yoga?

Almost 80% of respondents felt that music has a positive impact on the practice of yoga with 62.2% of those who responded stating that music enhances their practice. 15.6% of respondents stated that music is essential to their practice.  8.9% of respondents stated that music detracts from their practice, however these were also the same people who identified specific distractions in music on another question.  It is likely that many of them would still be open to practicing yoga with music if it did not have "distracting vocals" or "soloing instruments."

Important musical elements (select as many as you desire).

58.7% chose "Warm Washes of Sound," 50% selected "Bells, Bowls, Cymbals," 39.1% selected "Steady Percussion" and 34.8% selected "Mysterious Echoes."  What was a bit surprising was that only 6.5% of respondents chose "Speaking." I wholeheartedly agree with them but I thought this would be higher because I have participated in so many classes where the instructor plays music with a breathy voice reciting poetry.  Most surprising was the number of "Other" responses which mentioned a dislike for vocals and words within their music for practice.  The general consensus is that words "default to distraction."  A sound is just a sound, while words are cognitive symbols that require some level of mental focus for interpretation.  There will be an expanded discussion of this issue when I post Part II because a lot of people mentioned it and I have always felt that if something jumps out and grabs your attention while you are practicing then it is inherently distracting.

How much time do you generally spend on each section of your practice?

Because it is common to have both 60 minute and 90 minute classes, there was a wide variety of responses.  Here's the breakdown of the highest percentages:

Centering             1-5              (64.3%)

Warm-Up              10-15          (35.7%)

Main Flow             20-25          (19%)

Final Poses           10-15          (34.9%)

Resting/Corpse    5-10            (45.2%)

Summary

All in all, I am very excited by the current results of the survey.  Music for Space Travel is in the final mixing stages and it is comforting to know that my most important concerns were also expressed by others.  Another issue that a lot of respondents mentioned in the write-in portion is how important it is that the record have a constant flow that conforms to the practice.  From the beginning I felt that the ideal music for yoga starts gently, builds very slowly in intensity while maintaing a steady pulse, and then slowly places the listener in a contemplative and restful place.  I guess you will be the judge of whether or not Music for Space Travel achieves that.

While I always welcome comments, I hope that you will use this opportunity to take the survey yourself.  It only takes a few minutes, is entirely anonymous, and participants who give us their e-mail will receive a free track when the album comes out (the e-mail address is stored separately and will not be associated with specific results).

TAKE THE SURVEY

Blessings,

Jay

            Earlier today I received an Z-mail from fellow Zaadster Vivi-Mari that got me thinking about the nature of "Talent."  My view of talent has changed over the years and has recently been reshaped by a book I am reading called, This is Your Brain on Music.  In one section the book talks about a variety of studies done on people who are considered experts at a musical instrument, or science, or even chess.  The study that was most intriguing was a study that had professors (secretly) identify two groups of first year music students based on how talented the professor perceived the students to be.  A few years latter they checked in with the students and discovered that students from both groups had excelled at their instrument.  The one thing that the most accomplished musicians had in common from both groups was that they put significantly more time into practicing than the other students.

          In my youth I was often told how talented I was or how smart I was.  In reality I think this encouraged my laziness.  According to psychologists if you tell a child - "Good job, you're so talented!" - it reinforces the idea in the child's mind that their accomplishment stems from some innate quality they have.  On the other hand if you tell a child - "Good job, you must have worked really hard on that!" - it reinforces the notion that the time and energy that the child put in is responsible for the result.

          There is certainly a myth of Talent in this culture that we use to explain the success of many people.  People point out that Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age of six, but that's not the whole story is it?  First of all Mozart's first symphony is more of a novelty than anything - it is nothing compared to his later works.  More importantly, Mozart's father was considered to be one of the greatest music teachers in Western Europe (though very strict) and it is certain that by the time Mozart wrote that symphony he had spent 30-40 hour a week practicing music for the last two years.  Now I don't think that is healthy for a child, and many of the stories of Mozart's later life confirm that he was not a healthy adult.  Nonetheless, those thousands of hours of practice and study had a great deal to do with what Mozart was able to accomplish at such an early age.

          Now if you define talent as relating to the passion and love for what you do, it becomes an entirely different story.  There is certainly a cause and effect relationship because the more you love doing something, the more time you spend doing it, the better you become at it.  Whether it is painting, or playing the guitar, or learning chess moves, the passion that drives us to learn more about something is certainly related to the perception of "talent" that others have about us.

          I want to be clear though, I do not think that a musician must spend five hours a day practicing scales.  Scales will certainly help, but conforming to an institutionalized approach to learning will often prevent an artist from finding their unique voice.  What I think is important is the time spent playing, practicing, listening, and experimenting.  I was recently watching an interview with my Zaadster friend Rane in which she talked about playing the sitar.  She started writing songs within the first week and her instructor told her she couldn't do that - that she must practice scales for a year first. 

          This is similar to my experience with tabla.  I picked up a used tabla four years ago and just started playing around with it and learning what I could do with it.  I had read enough about the tabla to know that the bass drum is supposed to be played with the left hand and the higher drum with the right.  But I loved the pitch variations of the bass drum and used my stronger right hand to play the bass drum (I didn't cross arms, I just switched the drums).  This is similar to how I sometimes play keyboards.  I will split the keys so that I can play a bass line with my right hand while my left hand does the chording.  I went to see a tabla instructor after a few years of playing (and even recording an album) and he told me the first thing I had to do was switch hands!

          I would never deny the rich musical history of music theory and instruction - it often represents thousands of years of combined knowledge.  But I think that musical instructors sometimes get trapped in "the way that it must be" when in reality that approach limits new discovery and exploration by training the mind and body to think in a certain way.  What I mean to say is you must practice, you must work, you must study, and you must experiment - BUT - just because others practice a certain way does not mean that is the way you must do it.  At some point someone had to try a new approach to an instrument before it was canonized into a set of rules, maybe your approach will someday be taught to others - who knows?

Jay

Jay: I believe that psychoactive substances are a gateway, an instant key to the reality that exists beyond us.

Jay: That's ridiculous.  The only evidence that hallucinogens allow you to experience another reality is the evidence of the experience itself.  How can you trust your altered mind to recognize a real state?  Your mind is simply experiencing the altered state which it tries to process the only way it knows how - as some sort of meta reality.  They are called mind-altering drugs, not reality awakening drugs.

Jay: You make a good point.  But how then can we ever know what's real beyond our perceptions?  We are eternally trapped inside our own heads, captive to our senses.  How can one differentiate between the externally valid stimuli and internal neurons firing randomly?  The only way I know how to confirm an aspect of external reality is through the collective reality.  If I see a monkey flying through the sky, I turn to the guy next to me and ask, "Do you see that?"  If he says, "What, the monkey flying through the sky?"  Then I at least have some knowledge that what I perceive is beyond just my own mind and others are capable of the same perception.  So is the case with the hallucinogenic experience.  People have shared this experience, this "tapping in" to something beyond yourself.  They have shared it and written about it and described the same experiences that I myself went through.

Jay: Sorry, bud.  That doesn't cut it.  Everyone in a theatre can see the 3-D movie when they put their 3-D glasses on.  It remains, however, an illusion.  No matter how many people see it.  The mind is tricked through optical illusion and believes it is seeing something that we can readily ascertain is not there.  The specific drug state can not be experienced without the metaphorical 3-D glasses.

Jay: Ah, but that is where you are wrong.  The same experience is attainable without the use of drugs.  It is experienced through meditation and contemplation; it is experienced through music and dance.  Human experience is filled with instances where the sober mind can be transported and become aware of the interconnectivity of all things.  You can climb the mountain on foot or you can take a helicopter to the top.  The view from the top is the same, even if the journey there is not.

Jay: Let's say for a moment that I subscribe to your point of view.  What's the point of taking the helicopter to the top?  When you reach the mountain top through your own sweat and effort you can stay as long as you want as opposed to being whisked away when the helicopter runs low on gas, leaving you back at the base with an entire mountain to climb.

Jay:  Well if I never climbed a mountain before, it could be harder to reach the top without knowing the landscape, the paths and pitfalls on the journey to that peak.  If a drug transports me to the peak for only a moment at least I can stand there and see the mountain.  When it comes time to climb it, I already have a sense of the landscape.  Having been to the summit before, I am better able to see my path and know my goal when I start from the bottom.

Jay: This assumes that spiritual practice and hallucinogens take you to the same peak.  Even if you assume that, seeing a mountain path from the top will not necessarily help you climb it.  Just as you can not distinguish a single tree when looking at a forest from far away.  The steps of the path are not revealed to you by looking down upon it.

Jay: How can you be so narrow minded?  Certainly there is something to be gained through the hallucinogenic experience?

Jay:  Not in the way you are thinking.  You are coming at this from a Western mindset where there is a "goal," a "peak," an achievement you can obtain.  The whole  point of the spiritual experience is the journey toward it, not the finish line.  Any "enlightenment" you reach by just jumping to the top is a hollow shell of the experience perceived by those who have climbed that mountain path.  Your journey informs your understanding of that moment.  The benefit that is obtained through that moment of insight comes via the multitude of moments during that journey in which you learn a about yourself and your reality.

Jay: Imagine for a moment that you could spend 2 hours experiencing the practice of yoga or deep meditation as a yogi of 50 years experiences it?  Even if you will now have to work for years to get there, the experience itself is motivation to walk that long path.  Knowing for even a moment what the journey rewards you with is motivation to undertake and continue the journey.

Jay:  But it is still a false knowledge, even if it motivates you to a deeper truth.  Imagine a person on steroids.  They may be able to lift more weight and have more energy, the ability to run farther and faster, but that is not them - that is the steroids!  As soon as they are off the steroids that strength and speed goes away, leaving them back at step one, saddened and discouraged by the fact that they can not actually achieve what the drug helped them believe was real.  On the other hand if you exercise and train for years, you can lift that weight the next day, and the day after that.  Sure, if you stopped for long periods you would lose ground but you would still be stronger then you would ever be if you had not trained at all!  When you practice yoga and meditation, you fundamentally alter your body and your mind in ways that permanently change (and in my opinion improve) who you are.  With each step you earn the strength and wisdom to guide the next step.  It is this process that brings the true reward.

Jay:  Okay,  I'll agree with you that there is a superior path to experiencing awe.  A yogi can carry that mystery with them every day.  The only way to do that with drugs is to be on drugs all the time and I think we both know how that turns out.  But don't you recognize the thousands of years of religious ceremonies that have included mind-altering substances as part of their ritual?

Jay:  Of course.  Those substances give everyone a perception of something beyond themselves and no one can truly prove one way or the other whether that experience is real.  It is inescapable however that our brains are the tool through which we perceive all reality.  This may be through evolution, or divine will, or a combination of the two.  But I think we can both agree that the clearer and healthier the mind, the better able we are to understand and perceive the spiritual experience.

Jay: So there is no point to taking mind-altering substances?

Jay:  Sure there is.  They are fun!

Jay:  This conversation has helped me understand why it is you are talking to yourself.

Jay: No.  You are talking to your self.

Jay: Whatever.

In his book "This is Your Brain on Music,"  Daniel J. Levitin writes about the fact that all sound is a psychological construct.  Outside of our heads it is simply a vibration of molecules that has no inherent "sound" unto itself.  Here's a slightly oversimplified nutshell of what happens:

When a sting is plucked It vibrates back and forth as it returns (like a decreasing pendulum) to it's initial position.  This vibrates the molecules around the string and as the vibrating molecules reach your ears they vibrate your ear drum at the same level of vibration or frequency.  It is our vibrating eardrums that we actually "hear."

So if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?  Quite simply, No.  It produces vibrations that would be sound if an animal (human or otherwise) were there to perceive it through their auditory organ.

This whole concept correlates with Newton's observation that there is no so thing as color until it is perceived by the eyes.  An apple is not red, its "color" is a wavelength that the eye perceives as red.

So everything you hear and everything you see is defined in the perceiving by the organs of perception.  In fact it is just wavelengths or vibrations that our eyes and ears turn into something else which is categorized by our brain as "color" or "sound."

Some people avoid science because they think that discussions like this take away some of the mystery of life for them.  Me - I think its cool and in fact makes life more mysterious.  It means that the space beyond our eyes and ears is beyond our perception.  Every song, every painting, every film, every symphony is simply an organization of vibrations and wavelengths that we define in our perception of them.  Just beyond our skin and organs lies a world we cannot truly experience, a world that is only perceived on an infinitesimal level.

Why would we think then that we can accurately gage what someone else thinks of us, what a certain human interaction means, or whether something that occurs to us is ultimately good or bad?  Even science reinforces the notion of Mindfulness.  Everything perceived is colored by perception and although we may not be able to change our perception of sound or color, we can certainly alter our perception of others, of suffering, of love and death.

Science will never replace God (in whatever form or un-form you choose), science only deepens the mystery of everything beyond our skin (as well as all beneath).

As of 2007, over 200 BILLION CD's have been sold.  That's 200 Billion disks of polycarbonate plastic with a thin sheet of aluminum, or in some cases gold, in the middle.  And this does not even include the plastic jewel cases most CD's come in. Although there are limited applications for recycling certain parts of a CD, the time has come to slow down and eventually halt this wasteful practice.

By downloading your music and storing it on an mp3 player (I myself am a fan of the I-pod) you can cut down on waste and carry all of your music with you at the same time.

What about sound quality?  It is true that the standard download from I-tunes is lower in quality than a CD, but an I-tunes download is DOUBLE the sound quality of FM radio.  For most listeners, this is all you will ever need.  If you are an audiophile such as myself, you will be happy to know that many music services, such as E-music are offering higher quality downloads every day. 

Our commitment to you.  Our new record label, Refugia Records, will be launched this December to coincide with the release of our Yoga/Meditation CD, Music for Space Travel.  As the Chairperson of Refugia Records, I plan on creating and growing a label that is based almost exclusively on digital downloads!  I say almost because we are printing up a small number of CD's for promotional purposes which we are sending to yoga studio's across the country.   We will minimize our impact by packaging the CD's in Recycled cardboard sleeves printed with soy-based ink.  (If you are an instructor or a studio, e-mail me with any questions on how to be a part of the pre-release).

If you do not own an mp3 player, now is the time to get one and start downloading your music.  If artists you enjoy do not offer downloads, encourage them to do so.  And remember to turn off and unplug your computer when not in use as even on standby, it can waste unneeded electricity.

Blessings,

Jay

The question I am still in the process of answering - "What do you want to do with your life?"

From parents, to bosses, to friends, this question first reared its ugly head in childhood and has followed me ever since.  Recently, my wife and I moved back to Columbia, Missouri after a brief stint in KC - this move was an answer in a way to the question.  For Michelle (my wife) the answer is "I want to get my PhD is Counseling Psychology and help others," for me the answer is "I do not want to be an 80-hr-a-week corporate attorney."

In truth, for the past ten years my only answer to that question has really come in the form of a negative.  It is as if I am slowly chipping away at the rough stone of me removing what I do not want to be, hopping the final form will eventually reveal itself.  As I continue editing the yoga album I feel as if that form is finally coming forth!

Jay: Life is like a game of chess; you sit and analyze your moves, you predict where the game will go, and you weigh your choices.  You plan ahead, you prepare for the possibilities and step by step you move toward the inevitable conclusion.

Jay: Sorry man, I am just not buying it.  I have seen people live their lives that way and they end up waiting to move until they are prepared for everything.  The trouble is you can't prepare for everything, so instead you just sit there waiting instead of ever moving.  Sure, you should think out your choices in life but ultimately you have to make some of those decisions while in motion.  Instead of planning for every possibility why not just move - then you'll know what's going to happen and you can respond to it.

Jay: Whatever dude.  If you live life that way, you end up just responding to whatever happens - you are not the master of your own destiny!  Instead you are just responding to what happens while always wondering why you never get anywhere.  You can make the best "decisions in motion" possible - it's still not going to save you if you step off a cliff!  There's no reason to just flow through life when you have the ability to examine the possibilities and direct the moves you make on the board.

Jay:  I think life is more like a musical improvisation.  There are still good choices and bad choices; it still benefits you to be patient before you respond in the moment.  But ultimately you have to let life reveal itself to you, only then can make your life into sweet music.

Jay: Cheddar.  You are such a douche - "make your life into sweet music?"  Seriously?  During musical improvisation, even bad choices don't necessarily have repercussions.  You just drop the bad choice and move on.  Life is like chess because each choice you make has a repercussion.  It's all cause and effect.  Imagine if you improvised your way through a chess game.  If you never though things out then you would easily find yourself in a corner - you would realize after the fact how many of your mistakes could have been easily avoided if you had just given it a little more thought.

Jay: Actually, I have improvised my way through games of chess.  It is a hell of a lot more fun.  Sure I didn't win all of them but I had a great time.

Jay: Exactly - you didn't win!  How many times did you tell yourself, "I should have seen this coming?"

Jay:  But how do you win life?  The only "inevitable conclusion" is death - this life is impermanent.  If life is like chess then it is a game where the clock could stop at any time!  There is no guarantee that you get to finish your game.  How can you win if you don't end up having time to get to checkmate?  You can think it through all you want, but if you die before you are able to play all your moves you'll just regret not having more fun during the game instead of working toward the "victory" that you could never obtain.