The Human Experience: Beware the Life of an Artist

Life is a Festival 006:

David Block (The Human Experience)

It’s 8am on January 1st, and David Block serenely paints on a large collaborative canvas in the sun drenched third floor of San Francisco’s iconic Clock Tower. He has just produced the most audacious event of his career so far, Slow Down New Years Eve, and after its resounding success, David paints.

David is an artist. He performs electronic music as The Human Experience and has collaborated with 50 different musicians in his career including Rising Appalachia and his new super band Gone Gone Beyond. David is also a visual artist and photographer and has recently been ramping up his event production by slowing down.

On this episode of the Life is a Festival Podcast, we discuss how David conceptualizes and designs his life as an artist. We chat about his relationship to psychedelics and his passion for Vipassana meditation. We wade into some controversial territory as we discuss cultural appropriation, outrage culture and our mutual missteps in spiritual egoism.

For David the life of a professional artist means taking risks, even when it might offend someone; it means collaborating with people who push his boundaries; it means patience, persistence and passion; and above all, it means choosing a dangerous road that could very well ruin the most beautiful things that art has to offer.

Life is a festival, but beware the life of an artist, unless it’s the medicine for your soul.