In a 2017 interview with Howard Stern, Kendrick Lamar talks about his experience when Dr. Dre first reached out to him with an opportunity to produce his first album.
HS: “How do you, at that age, get Dr. Dre interested in you? Does Top Dawg make the introduction?”
KL: “What happens is, a lot of work prior to that makes the introduction […] which is crazy because you go from writing these songs in your mother’s kitchen, to, you know, someone telling you that people of this calibre—of this magnitude—have heard the song, and they like it.”
HS: “When you get into the studio with him, is it intimidating?”
KL: “Yeah. I’ll tell you this. The first time was the moment I knew, I’ve arrived, because I’m not only meeting him. It’s just not an introduction. He plays and beat and says, write to it. I wanna see if it’s really you.”
KL: “It’s a moment where you gotta say—where I said to myself, ‘this is it.'”
I’m watching this in my room, in a rainy afternoon. It’s dark out.
When Kendrick drops the “this is it” right at the end of that video, I’m suddenly moved to look at my own life. Then I’m forced to ask myself:
What’s going on here? What am I missing? What opportunity am I taking for granted? What am I not seeing?
Funny, the rain outside is making for great background noise for contemplation.
Maybe there’s a “this is it” in every moment. What if every moment is it? We may not have that Dr. Dre moment, the same way a Kendrick Lamar would, but I know that once in a while, we get this feeling of having “arrived.”
How much of our time is spent looking back or looking ahead? How much resentment, regret, fear, anxiety has all this caused us?
Maybe it’s just the weather, but this is hitting me much harder now than it probably would before. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic.
About once every week, I would send a message to someone, containing some variation of those words at the top of this page. “When things are better,” “after all this is over,” “pag pwede na.”
So much has been postponed that it’s tempting to simply wait for when things are better, before we can start giving life a real shot, before we can start actually living again.
But the harsh truth is, we do this even without the pandemic. We forget that this moment, and every other moment for that matter, can be that “this is it” moment.
As the saying goes, “the way we do anything is the way we do everything.” Lives are made of years, and years are made of days, and days, of moments. Every moment is simply a pixel in the large photo that is our time here.
This goes beyond productivity. This isn’t about having something to show for by the end of the lockdown. This isn’t about recklessly ignoring the pandemic either. It’s about fully realizing what is at hand.
We’re so good at looking ahead that we forget about what’s right in front of us, which is the only thing that’s tangible and real. This room, this house, the rain outside, this train of thought.
The point is recognition. Virtually none of the people reading this will ever have Dr. Dre calling them to produce their music, obviously. But there are everyday moments, not of the same degree, but of the same substance.
All moments are waves. Some are 100 feet tall, others are 10 feet tall. All are waves regardless, and all are perfect for different circumstances. If only we had given ourselves more time and space to notice.
“When things are better,” we tell ourselves.
“When time allows for it.”
“When conditions are perfect.”
Fine. But what if this moment is the “this is it” moment for something else? What is that thing, somewhere in the deep recesses of our minds, that is yearning for our attention? What is this moment calling for?
Maybe it’s rest. Maybe it’s catching up with some people we miss. Maybe it’s catching up with ourselves. Maybe it’s being honest with ourselves. Maybe it’s taking a shot. Maybe it’s courage.
The conditions now are ideal for something. This is the perfect time for something. This, here? This is it.