Learning for each person has many forms, depending on whether the environment around each person encourages curiosity and the desire to learn or not.
“Every learning creates changes both internally and externally for us.”
In a person’s life, there are many factors that are the starting point for the learning process until it can create changes within that person. Similarly, in the life of each person, there are various learning processes. Each person’s learning steps are different, giving rise to a unique awareness in their own way.
Pod – Thanachai Ujjin is like that. As the lead singer of a popular band for a long time, he has gone through many unique experiences. And each step gradually makes him feel something that vibrates inside, creating changes little by little, without him even realizing it.
Learn to have fun
Pod – Thanachai Ujjin, former lead singer of Moderndog, tells us about his feelings on the day he first entered the music industry over 20 years ago.
“For a 23-year-old at that time, I was certainly happy and delighted that the work was successful. I had new experiences in life, such as playing music on the 7-Color Concert program, appearing on the Twilight Show with Tripop Limpat, and even hearing my own songs on the radio for the first time or turning on the TV and seeing a music video with me in it. All of these were new things in my life and were very strange experiences.”
Eight months after the release of their first album (August 9, 1994), the sudden fame made Pod – Thanachai Ujjin feel apprehensive about the challenge of maintaining standards and quickly surpassing the success that had occurred in his life. It would not be easy because in his early twenties at that time, he felt that both he and his bandmates were not ready to handle the pressure. He therefore decided to travel to the United States to study more about music for almost two years.
“I decided to go abroad with a feeling of fear that we would be able to do what we did in the first album. I mean, we did it for fun and it turned out to be a success. We wrote songs instinctively. We studied art but we had never written songs properly. So we didn’t know if we could write songs like that again. So we went to study in order to understand, to find new things to add to ourselves. We didn’t run away. We intended to go, to settle down, to open ourselves up to the world, to explore,” said Pod – Thanachai Ujjin , former lead singer of Moderndog, about going out to learn in order to prepare ourselves to seriously enter the professional artist stage.
After gaining knowledge and experience from traveling and living abroad, Pod – Thanachai Ujjin returned to make music for his second album. This time, Moderndog entered the rock music mode with a strong style and unconventional content.
Pod – Thanachai Ujjin told us that “It’s very different from the first album. In the Cafe album, there were songs like “Rup Mai Lor” and “Tim”. The intention was to make it different from the first album. Listeners would be confused as to why it’s not like Moderndog’s first album. But the intention was to change it. How could we make it not be like our own songs?”
It can be said that this was the rhythm of a young man’s life, whether he was aware of it or not, the success of his career had brought him to a point where the spotlight shone on him, creating an image of a teenage heartthrob that stuck in the hearts of Thais all over the country. But at the same time, it also prompted Pod – Thanachai Ujjin to question himself, which created a small spark in his heart, causing him to start seeing in a direction that was opposite to the image of himself that others understood.
Learn to be calm
After finishing his second album, Pod – Thanachai Ujjin decided to enter the learning process again, but this time, it was a learning process in a different form from the learning process he had learned before. He decided to become a monk to explore his inner self.
Pod – Thanachai Ujjin told us that “When I finished the first album, I set a goal in my life to go abroad. When I went abroad and came back, I worked on the second album. When I finished the second album, I thought that this time we would go to the inner city, which means to explore my own mind. So I decided to ordain to get to know myself.”
“That ordination gave him many answers to life.”
Pod – Thanachai Ujjin said, “I think the most important thing about being ordained that time was that I got to follow all 227 rules. It was very heavy for a person who was emotionally and sensitively moved by various things because it was not the same way of life that we used to live. We had to wake up early to walk on the road barefoot 4 kilometers down the mountain every day to collect alms. We had to live in a hut with only a mat and a small pillow. We woke up at 3:30 AM with our minds full of various thoughts. But these things made us see our thoughts rushing out. It was like we were a receiver and the thoughts in our heads were radio waves of various channels that came to us. I think it was important for me because it made us see ourselves, our thoughts, our emotions, our emotions, our satisfaction and dissatisfaction that appeared. We started to step back and become an observer, but an observer who had just started training.”
After ordination, Pod – Thanachai Ujjin said that he saw and understood himself more, causing him to start letting go of his identity and ego that had accumulated from his previous thoughts, which had an ongoing effect on his way of thinking about music, or at the same time, it had an effect on his way of life as well.
“In the past, we might have worked with the power of desire, the desire to win. Everyone has a driving force in working. Some people might be driven by anger, by the insults of others, until they produce outstanding work. Or it might be from the power of not believing in what is and wanting to prove something. These are concepts that we have and we are pushed by this power into art or songs,” Pod explains about his past work. “Until I came to make my third album, I thought that working in the old way was too stressful. So I tried to make strange songs that I couldn’t understand in my third album. Then some kids told me that I bought your tape and after listening to one page, I threw it away. So I felt that that was right,” he says with a chuckle.
“I later analyzed myself that we did that because we wanted to reduce our size, but at that time I didn’t understand it like that. It was just my instincts telling me to do that. But when I grew up and analyzed my life, I understood that at 28 years old, I had this kind of stress, so I chose to do this to survive or to be lighter than I was.”
Learn to communicate with yourself
In Pod – Thanachai Ujjin ‘s opinion, letting go of many things is the feeling he needs. Learning to control his emotions and feelings made him understand the truth that it is better to be calm than to have fun. He discovered that his musical path began with fun that was full of momentum that was ready to swing him further or even toss them into any abyss. Finding peace through training the mind to deal with those momentum required other skills to help, including turning to drawing, which was a skill he had originally had.
“If it’s about interacting with myself, I’ll give a clear example, like when I paint, I’ll always have questions like, what color next? What color should I pick? What color should I use? This is like talking to myself. We swipe here and we see the emotion when we like it. The liking comes up and we see it. Or if we mess it up, we see the shock. This is more of a process of learning about ourselves than a piece of work. A piece of work is the result of understanding ourselves. We see ourselves going up and down, seeing various things throughout the process of painting a piece of work,” he explained about his internal learning process from his art work.
As long as life must go on, every second that passes must be a constant learning experience. Even though his musical career and the band Moderndog have achieved rapid success, Pod Thanachai ’s life still has to continue learning endlessly. And the learning in the future that he has chosen is learning to find peace and comfort within his mind.
Pod – Thanachai Ujjin told us that he felt that what he wanted to say was quite comprehensive. For example, in the latest album, there is a song with only 2 words: Loy Ma, Loy Pai. He felt that this song answered all the stories.
It’s like we don’t have to explain it with words anymore because in the end, life just floats by. Which can actually be a red flag for a songwriter because what else are you going to write? But we make music to understand ourselves. Every song we write is to tell ourselves. We don’t dare to teach anyone anything.
“Every song I write is just to tell myself,” Pod Thanachai concluded, summarizing his life’s learnings.
The story references an interview with Mr. Pod – Thanachai Ujjin.
From the Transformative Learning Project
Supported by the Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth.)
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Khun Ui – Natee Ekwichit : Knowledge, no need to waste time searching for it, because learning can happen all around us.
