Today, I got over the pain of a project I had been procrastinating on.

I started a timer and got to work on it. Within just a few seconds, the pain was gone.

I had built the project up in my mind as something worse than it was. I kept bumping it forward on my to-do list, as though my future self would be pleased to see it there tomorrow.

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The way most people learn classical piano, they are building in mistakes that will make them sound like amateurs forever.

They start at the beginning of a piece, which is only logical, and keep playing until they reach the end. There are stumbles along the way, but that’s only natural. It will get better with time, right?

Not necessarily. A piece can get more familiar, but it isn’t guaranteed to get better. If your fingers play the same wrong thing a hundred times, that’s what they will “think” is correct. Fixing this problem requires an intervention.

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Here we are in late-stage pandemic. God, I hope this is late-stage.

Some of us have made it to the “other side” — vaccinated and ready to party — and some of us are still waiting. But it still doesn’t seem to be over, and there is no clear end point in sight. There’s no armistice to be signed, no bells that will ring.

In times of high uncertainty and stress, humans seek comfort. When our everyday circumstances provide little in the way of natural neurochemical highs, we go looking. Some of these are destructive even in moderation: cigarettes, hard drugs, dangerous places online and offline. Some of them are fine for awhile, but it’s a slippery slope: alcohol, work, gambling, gaming, TV, shopping, social media.

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When I was a new music teacher, I found myself obsessing over materials.

There was nothing better than opening a slim, unmarked music book in order to present just the right piece at just the right time, for just the right student. It made my job so much easier.

The challenge was finding that “just right” book that had a dozen or so perfectly chosen and sequenced musical pieces. So I found myself, just about every week, heading up to Hutchins & Rea, an independent music store headquartered in the Atlanta suburbs.

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I started rowing due to peer pressure.

The only people I knew in my new city were rowers, so I took up rowing. That was fine with me — I love early mornings, being on the water, and working as part of a team.

I didn’t love rowing, though. Not at first. It was confusing, physically demanding, and even a little bit painful (blisters upon blisters). And if I messed up particularly badly, I might unwittingly toss a half dozen people into the sea.

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