"What kind of life do you want to live?"
written by Isaac Santos
Bahlest Eeble Readings Cycle 17 Fellow
“What kind of life do you want to live?” is a question frequently posed by Gabriela during the 2024 residency, and one I now frequently ask myself. Even after prolonged thought, I am not sure; I do not know.
As I now enter the latter half of my twenties, I feel more clueless than ever. Everything I thought I knew about myself in the world has been slowly dismantled over the course of my young adult life; it’s as though I have regressed into a different version of my childhood-self. I thought life was simple and all that was required was perseverance.
Now almost 25, I have begun to realize how infinitely complicated and nuanced every facet of our existence really is– that life is a spiral staircase that travels in no particular direction.
On the flip side, I know more than I did previously(?) I have learned a lot about myself and the world around me in recent years. I suppose what I am getting at is that the more I learn, the less I know. For every new thing I discover, three other things either become untrue or take on a new unexplored meaning.
One thing I have been struggling with for a long time is finding ‘purpose’ in my life. For a few years I did not believe in ‘purpose’. For me, life was a series of experiences through which as humans we would accrue meaning over time, but that ‘purpose’ ought not be conflated with it. While this idea still resonates as true, it doesn’t quite satiate my desire for something more. As the world around us is up in flames– both figuratively and literally– and people are suffering, in pain, lost and depressed, I began to wonder: “Is what I am doing, composing music, meaningful? Does it give me purpose?”
Since I was young, I have always valued serving others. Whether it be lending a stranger a helping hand, cooking a meal for friends, fixing random objects (or trying to at least), amongst other things; however, composing has been almost exclusively a solitary experience for me. Much of the joy I get from writing music is in the process of writing it. Each new piece I compose, I discover something new about myself and the world around me along the way. I enjoy sharing what I have written with others in hopes of communicating something from deep within the furthest reaches of my conscience, but wonder if what I have created has an actual tangible impact.
Without a doubt, there are other people out there who have felt what I have felt– existential dread, despair, aimlessness, or lack of ‘purpose’. With the music I write being a direct manifestation of those feelings, perhaps those people who have felt those same feelings will feel validated or embraced by what I have created. Ultimately, this idea has encouraged me to reevaluate my understanding of ‘purpose’ to begin with. I have been thinking more about how I can be a positive force to those in my immediate musical life as opposed to trying to reach the largest audience possible, or appeal to some predominant aesthetic or ideal. I am finding that to not only be applicable to my musical life, but how I exist in my quotidian relationships and experiences. Sometimes, just sharing a meal with someone is enough to make an entire life worth living.
Reflecting back on my time in Boonville, I am realizing how fortunate I am to have had that experience: to be making music with such beautiful and sincere people, sharing the most delicious food, amongst the idyllic landscapes of northern California, in a time that seems so bleak and absent of joy.
Going forward in life, I believe this is how I wish to define purpose for myself. To live life in the pursuit of purpose and accruing meaning along the way.
Isaac Santos
Isaac Santos (b.2000) is a composer of contemporary concert music currently based in New Jersey, and originally from Broward County, Florida. Much of Isaac’s current output is inspired by nature, existentialism, and everyday life. Through his compositions, he aspires to create deeply affective music that engages introspectively with some of our (humankind’s) most deep and poignant emotions.
His teachers have included Stephen Hartke, Elizabeth Ogonek, Jesse Jones, Michael Frazier, Jihyun Kim, and Maria Grenfell. Before coming to Oberlin, he studied privately for half a year with composer Andrew Boss while still living in Florida. In 2018, he was selected as a winner for the American Composers Forum Next Notes Composition Contest. In 2019, he was selected as a winner in the orchestral category for the National Young Composers Challenge. He has had premieres by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble under Timothy Weiss, as well as a commission for ‘Les Art Noveau Chalmeaux’-a large clarinet ensemble based in Miami. He received a commission for the soundSCAPE composition and performance exchange in 2021, and was nominated and chosen for the Lakes Area Music Festival as its inaugural composer fellow in 2022. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and will begin as a PhD candidate in Princeton University’s Department of Music in the fall of 2023.