Leaning against the wall sitting on the stairs with his back against the wall, a teenage boy with a scruffy haircut and an oversized jacket was asked to describe himself.

“My name is Miles, and I am very interested in music.”

Miles has been playing music for most of his life, beginning when his parents encouraged him to pick up the violin in second grade.  What started as an activity to keep him busy, turned into his life’s passion.  Music has now become one of the strongest forces in his life.

“Playing music is probably what drives my time here at Hickman to be successful,” Miles said.

One of Mile’s mentors here at Hickman is Phil Overeem, a retired Hickman teacher who is now a substitute teacher and Stephens college professor. The two met in a way that Overeem described as “very interesting,” when Overeem was subbing for the EEE class

“Class had started, about five minutes had elapsed, and Miles, this will surprise no one that knows him, came in late, seemed a little flustered and flopped down on a couch,” Overeem said. 

Later on, Overeem explained, he had to take a phone call and lean over Miles, which clearly frustrated him. However, Miles then had to stay in Ms. Dachroeden’s room with Overeem during lunch. “It didn’t start out like a story of a student and a teacher kind of hitting it off because we didn’t,”said Overem, but ultimately music brought them together. 

“We had chatted a little bit, and I think he understood I was not the enemy. And then once music came into the conversation… we realized that we were really very much on the same page. And then quickly, from that point on, anytime I have seen him in EEE or in the hallway or something like that, we always talk a lot,” Overeem said.

Music has also helped build connections with the peers in his life, such as his friend and former bandmate Luke Swofford. 

Luke and Miles also met in the EEE resource room and immediately hit it off. Luke claims that one of the things that brought them so close together is their old band called The Bugsquashers.

When the two were outside they saw a gigantic bug and that unlikely event inspired their plans to form a band. 

“Throughout time, [the bug] kind of transformed into a metaphor for everything bad,” meaning that the band was formed to essentially “squash everything bad, with love and kindness, of course,” as Luke said. 

Squashed bugs and future plans are what built their relationship.

“We had a grand plan to cover his entire bedroom with the boxy style of TV…but that one kind of went nowhere because we were only able to find one box TV at Itchy’s flea market that doesn’t work. And so for the past year, he’s just been driving around with a giant box TV in his truck,” Luke said.

By serving as a creative outlet, music helps Miles find a focus for these creative plans. 

 “I think that having a creative outlet, even if not music, is good for me, because it’s kind of blunt, and then on the instrumental side, trying to capture the feelings that are less easy to put into words,” Miles said.

Listening to and creating various styles of music helps Miles to process his emotions. One way he does this is by coming home from a stressful day at school and focusing all of his attention into admiring specific details of one song. He also writes songs to understand what he is going through, like writing a love ballad as an outlet to deal with mental health struggles in his freshman year. Miles’ favorite types of songs to write are songs about unique things.

“When I think I write something that I really enjoy, it’s because it offers a certain level of complexity,” Miles said, “if you write something that objectively simplistic, there’s already 100 other poems and a million other songs that have been written that sort of capture the exact same thing that you have, which is okay. I think that being able to… observe small details about a subject can make your writing more unique and a bit more valuable, kind of in a way where it’s just a different experience to consume that piece of art.”

Whether it’s stumbling across squashed bugs with his friend, or trying to decorate his room with ‘boxy tvs’ one thing that seems to represent itself in every aspect of Miles’ life is passion. 

He claims that he would consider himself a very passionate person, which is clear to see in every single aspect of his life. The one thing that he wishes people were more passionate about in life is passion itself

“As cheesy as it sounds, [I like] the idea of  stop and smell the roses. Appreciating the more minute, less preferable aspects of life, speaking of them in a way that is very engaging and thoughtful. It is something that I wish a lot more people put more passion into,” Miles said. 

Miles uses this positive outlook to make music and it is what defines his point-of-view on life.

“I think that, sort of thinking about life in the context of ‘everything is so f – awesome’ is pretty good for just feeling good and being positive.”