Off and on, I experience a sense of being unfulfilled.
I know exactly where it comes from, too. I’m not playing enough music.
For years, I played open mics and in bands. I started a music school and played and taught music for hours every day. Then I played music with the students of The Little Middle School every morning, everything from Lead Belly to The Magnetic Fields.
Read MoreThe lawn did not appear to be fully mown, unless the person who had mowed it intended, as a work of art or landscape design, to leave a rectangular patch of grass to continue to grow.
The lawnmower was nowhere in evidence. The rest of the yard appeared to be tidy.
When I walked by again, tomorrow, next week, or next month, would this patch of taller grass still be there? Would it be mown flat? Or would more of the lawn have become wild?
Read MoreMy niece, age four, was practicing her letters. It was not going well.
“This is is the [most] tewwible W I’ve evew seen!” she said angrily, already imposing unrealistic expectations upon herself at her tender age.
This is normal behavior for a four-year-old, but it is nonetheless painful to witness. As an adult, I wish I could have helped her to understand that it’s okay to create letters that aren’t perfect—there is no reason that she should feel bad about herself. But that’s not the kind of thing you can tell somebody. They have to figure it out for themselves.
Read MoreLike many people, I’ve gotten progressively more boring as I’ve gotten older.
I don’t go out as much. I work a lot. And most egregiously, when I’m driving or out for a walk, I’m more likely to listen to a podcast than music.
My fifteen-year-old self, to whom music was a fundamental reason for living, would have a hard time understanding.
Read MoreDave was looking for guitar lessons.
A successful professional with his own company and three school-age children, he joked in our first phone conversation about having a midlife crisis and said that he wanted to do something to stimulate his mind. He had no musical experience whatsoever, besides a lot of listening and attending shows.
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