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Buck up!

February 13, 2010 – 11:01 am

You might not recognize this guy, but it’s the young Sergei Rachmaninoff.  Russian composer and pianist extraordinaire.

The story goes that after the total failure of his first symphony, he ran off to Switzerland and underwent psychotherapy for 10 years.  At the end of which his doctor asked, “Have you ever considered writing music that you’d like to hear?”

And thus was born (shortly thereafter) the beloved 2nd piano concerto.

Moral of the story: While I might be struggling trying to find an audience for my books, at least I know what I want to write.

And, looking back on my younger days, when I thought about how neat it would be to write music instead of prose, I’m all too aware of the miasma enveloping contemporary “serious” music.  There’s no direction, no audience, and no real hope for a “breakthrough.”  (You might say the same thing about the world of theoretical physics.)

So all I can say is:

THANK GOD I’M NOT A COMPOSER!

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Go with the flow ~~~

February 6, 2010 – 8:42 pm

 

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Winter X Games

January 29, 2010 – 12:53 pm

Once again, the ESPN Winter X Games are upon us.

The weather’s milder this year than it has been in the past, which is a blessing, I guess.  (We could always use more snow.)

I heard a radio interview with a competitor a few years ago, the day before he was going to attempt the first-ever complete back flip (360 degrees, vertical) on a snowmobile.

He said that the intriguing thing was that you really couldn’t practice it.  You just had to go out and do it.  Yikes!

He managed to pull it off, the next day.

But he also said that he’d spent 7 of the last 12 months in the hospital, with various injuries.

Which made me think:

THANK GOD I DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS FOR A LIVING!

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… and just a reminder…

July 1, 2009 – 4:30 pm

hell awaitsWe don’t want this getting lost in the shuffle!

Let’s not be so wrapped up in ourselves that we lose sight of the fact that…

… we’re all going to hell!

There doesn’t seem any way around it.  Check out this guy’s list.  Which of these things have we never done?  (Okay, maybe a few, but I think you get damned to hell for any single one of them.  And that would be… assuming you only did it once!)

Now who wants a life philosophy based on the virtually assured prospect of eternal (eternal!) damnation?  Anybody you know?  Not me.

Let’s find a more positive reason to get out of bed every morning.

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One Last Beckett Anecdote

June 28, 2009 – 9:44 am

murphy by beckettA recurring theme, in this blog, is doing what you think you should be doing.  A la Rachmaninoff, or Samuel Beckett (or James Joyce, for that matter.  Or even Ayn Rand’s Howard Roarke.  Alas.)

Anyway, again from Deirdre Bair’s 1978 unauthorized biography.  (And by the way, it was unauthorized in the sense that Beckett simply wouldn’t give her– it– his blessing.  He neither helped nor hindered her with her research, but he did talk to her.  Several times, I assume.)  Anyway…

IN 1941, I think, Beckett was living in France, and he wrote to his London publisher, wondering why he hadn’t received a royalty check for the previous year, for his first novel, Murphy.

The publisher wrote back, explaining dryly that the book had only sold 3 copies in the past year, so they didn’t feel justified in the expense of writing and posting the check.

Now how’s that for encouragement?  3 copies.  Not 3,ooo.  3.

And admittedly, it’s not a great read.  Sometimes debut novels are great, sometimes they’re not so great.  Murphy is one of the not-so-great ones.  No surprise, really.  (I didn’t even keep a copy of my first novel.)

But he kept on writing.  His way.  Whether anybody wanted to read his stuff, or not.

I seriously doubt that, years later, he would’ve argued that eventually winning the Nobel Prize for Literature justified what he’d been producing all those years.  What justified what he produced was his vision.  He wrote what he felt he had to write.

So be it.

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School Finals

May 28, 2009 – 2:01 pm

2055437512_6ccd4b5949_mWell, once again, it’s high-school finals week at our house.  The seniors graduated last weekend, but for the rest of the kids…

As you can see, even the animals feel the need for some last-minute cramming.

There’s always a lesson to be learned, here, of course:  If you just took it one step at a time, never skipped class, paid attention, and all that, in the end everything would work out all right.  Well, it’d better.

But you have to wonder:  Is all of life nothing but an endless succession of “final exams?”  Then what the heck makes them so final?

A guy like Parmenides never had to worry about whether he was gonna “pass” a given test.  Actually, the way he looked at it, he was the guy giving the tests!  He wasn’t losing sleep over whether he was gonna succeed.  It was up to the material world to impress him.

Of course, he didn’t have to ace that job interview with Merrill Lynch.  Or Citibank.  Or Chrysler.  (All of whom probably aren’t hiring too much, these days.)  He didn’t have a cell-phone bill to pay.  Or have to worry about the hard-drive in his laptop imploding.

So he probably never had to pull an all-nighter.  Lucky him.

Except for:  He’s dead.

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Why I’ll never learn the banjo

May 21, 2009 – 10:34 am

2896216117_86b4166a5d_mReal simple.  I don’t have time.

Or rather: I’ve chosen not to prioritize learning the banjo, with the time available to me (before I kick off and… die.)

I probably won’t learn Swahili.  I probably won’t build a boat and sail around the world in it.  (I could change my mind, of course.)

This is a simple illustration of human limitation.  It’s not that I’d be incapable of learning the banjo (though I’d be unlikely to get as good at it as Bela Fleck, but then he’s been at it full-time since middle school).  And I could apprentice with a master boatwright and acquire the skills needed to build a very seaworthy boat.

But I don’t have THE TIME.  I’m only gonna live so long, and I’d never be able to get around to doing everything.

And– surprise!!– I’ve learned to accept that.  I’ll never write the great American novel, AND become a rock star, AND write a great symphony, AND find a cure for cancer, AND win a few Olympic gold medals.

And my life won’t suffer because of it!

Imagine that!

(By the way, the photo is Bela Fleck, in a performance with his girlfriend Abigail Washburn and two other great players, in an ensemble called the Sparrow Quartet.  Great bluegrass, combined with old Chinese folk songs.  Check it out online.)

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On Ambition

March 11, 2009 – 12:10 pm

2398991200_a29d7fa754_m1My wife mentioned to me, this morning, that today is the Ides of March.  Or thereabouts.  And it’s hard to think of the Ides of March without having the name Julius Caesar pop into your head.

If ever there was a guy whose name is forever associated with the term “Ambition,” it’s Caesar.  Like a lot of successful people, he might not have been the sort of guy you’d enjoy hanging out with a lot, because he was so self-focused, but he was by all accounts a charmer (when he needed to be).   And he was certainly a risk-taker, a guy who wasn’t just shooting his mouth off.

I’ve been writing in previous posts about things like “Tolerance,” “Gratitude,” “Humility.”  Part of the challenge to learning to live well is to learn to find one’s place in life.  And not overstep.  Not infringe upon others.  Be grateful for what you’ve got, and don’t try to rob the next guy of what’s his.  Live, and let live.

But that’s not to imply that ambition is out-of-bounds.  On the contrary, it’s hard to imagine living a fulfilling life without having goals.  Without having a dream.  Without striving for… something.  You just don’t need to be a jerk about it.

It’s the “get-out-of-my-way” approach to achieving success that’s so offensive.  The “my-goal-supersedes-your-goal,” “my-time-is-more-valuable-than-your-time” attitude that you just don’t appreciate.

What we’re looking for, in most everything, is balance.  But you want to accomplish things in life.  You want to set goals, achieve goals.  Have dreams.  Realize them.  We just don’t want other people (or creatures) to suffer in the process.

So let’s not say that ambition is antithetical to a life of gratitude and caring.  Then we’d still be living in caves, or grass huts.  There’s nothing wrong with having the latest Ipod.  You just don’t need to trample on somebody getting into the store to buy it.

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