Dear reader,
I offer the following ideas, not as pronouncements from On High, but as quiet reminders. They’re notes I’ve written to myself — things I’ve observed, felt, or come to suspect are true. I share them here with some reluctance, aware of how easily reflections like these can slip into didacticism. I don’t consider them certitudes, but because I’ve lived with these thoughts long enough I’ve grown to trust them.
There’s a line in Pirkei Avot — a centuries-old collection of Jewish ethical teachings — that says, “At fifty, counsel.”
Given the schedule, I’m already several years past due!
Every human being, based on his or her upbringing, education, and life experience, lives in a bubble. Very few have the capacity to fully realize their own entrapment. Rarer is the person who can peer inside another's bubble — to understand them. And perhaps to empathize with them.
A man who consistently rejects the criticisms of his spouse misses life’s greatest opportunity for self-development.
A man who consistently criticizes his spouse is a man who knows firsthand the nature of disharmony.
The moment a person becomes viscerally aware that he will one day pass on from this world (may that day be far in the future), he or she becomes wiser.
Feelings of gratitude are like new love: beautiful and transitory. When worked on to the degree that one becomes a virtuoso of gratitude— like a master violinist—we will have accomplished a wondrous feat.
Those of us who need to see a miracle before “believing” in God must not have been looking very hard.
Music, in its intangibility, is the closest thing we have to spirituality that we can manifest and mold.
Many people mistake the nature of writing. They assume it has mostly to do with organizing words according to established rules. In fact, it is nothing more than organizing the river of thought, which naturally flows through each of us at all times — even, and especially, when we dream.
Both artificial Intelligence and the piano are, in the broadest sense, highly technical machines that allow us to manifest our thoughts.
The only thing not subject to hedonic adaptation — that creeping sense of boredom with what once brought us joy — are our loving relationships.
Everyone is an artist, a creative person. Some of us have simply expanded on that innate human capacity.
To know someone means that we have been changed by them. It is not casual.
Winning an argument is the merest achievement. It does not bring joy or peace.
Pacifism in extremis is not a virtue. There are times when deadly enemies must be vanquished — not out of hatred, but to preserve life.
Those who truly help themselves often have the greatest capacity to help others.
Prayer does not necessitate a formal place or formal words.
Just as being part of a community provides a richer mode of being, communal prayer can provide a richer experience of the Divine.
The first thought of the day should contain thanks for one’s aliveness — and an idea for a specific positive act in service to oneself and another.
Discover the off button on your phone and get comfortable using it.
Restraint is a powerful creative choice.
Seven minutes is ample time to conceive, and sketch out the bones of an idea.
When you have the urge to reach out in a loving way, do not let the moment pass without doing so.
Read and watch things you disagree with.
Waiting is an inescapable part of life. Use long lines, late Uber arrivals, and lengthy telephone hold times as opportunities to develop patience.
Accept the idea that there is no such thing as bad weather, only different types of weather. Each affords an assortment of beautiful skies.
Forego the temptation to change minds through force or anger. Unless you feel it’s a life-and-death situation, lead with love.
Reflect often on the idea that every human being is born from the womb of another — dwell on the strangeness and mystery of a person emerging from the body of another person. To forget that each birth is an extraordinary event is to miss something essential about the world.
To define someone by their job is to miss their essence. To define oneself by one’s job is to miss the essence of one’s own life.
We all hold different views. This is not an unimportant statement. It is of utmost importance to know and to feel this.
The values we inherited from thousands of years of human history are not be easily replaced by ideas thought up by academics over many months.
To say I love you to those we love —or extend that sentiment in whatever way we choose — should become as constant and effortless as breathing. (Said with due sensitivity to the many people for whom breathing is not effortless.)
A smile, even if forced, can move mountains.
A scowl, even when deserved, serves no good purpose.
Come to know what is unique about you, what is special. Then use that gift without fear or embarrassment.
Notice how often you are waiting for the next thing, and the next. Learn to laugh at how foolish that is.
And finally, stop what you’re doing and write something nice to someone you love.
I’m eager to hear your reaction to what you’ve just read, and what ideas you have to share.
My book Suspended By No String: A Songwriter’s Reflections On Faith, Aliveness, and Wonder is available here.
My book Let Me Out: Unlock Your Creative Mind and Bring Your Ideas to Life is available here.
I am grateful for this list Peter--I find here 36 opportunities for welcome self-reflection. Most of these ring immediately true to me (e.g. I feel sorry for the spouse of anyone who does not recognize the wisdom of 2 and 3). Those that I question, I will use this space to briefly organize the rivers of thought they inspire.
4) And sadder.
6) In many ways I have been searching for God everywhere I look, in every song I hear, in every book I read, in every vision of nature's beauty I have seen, for my entire life. I am not looking for a miracle, just something I understand as Divine, as not explicable by the laws of nature, science, and evolution as I understand them. I am still looking, admittedly with the skeptical eyes with which my upbringing and life experiences have trained or cursed me.
7) I agree with this, with the caveat that not all of us have your gift to manifest and mold music. Like Salieri, I can appreciate Mozart's music but cannot hope to create its equal--in my case, not just Mozart's music, but that of any competent musician. Tone deaf, musically inept, I can only listen in wonder and joy. It is both my most sustaining pleasure and my deepest longing.
25) A minor quibble. For many people, weather is a matter of life and death. There definitely is such a thing as bad weather. As a Minnesotan (and a Californian who has just lived through horrific fires fueled by the weather), I think you must know this. The skies may be beautiful but what is wrought within them is not necessarily so.
30) The inverse can also be true. Slavery, discrimination, many forms of inequality that, in a relatively short time, we have banished from liberal culture, were acceptable for thousands of years. Women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights as we know them were unthinkable not long ago, and still are in many cultures. I believe we must always be willing to question and test every one of our traditions against the essential value of simple kindness and, if they don't measure up, discard them.
That's all I've got for now. The other 31 notes I accept without reservation! Be well my friend.
This inspired me so deeply, Peter. Thank you so much.