Practicing was bad today. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the panyard trying to get better, but Art was there today since he's in the EXCO steel drum class. He is simply a much better musician. Anything he touches sounds great, while I have to struggle to even sound musical. I have to keep reminding myself that he does what he does, and I do what I do and they are not the same thing. There is an objective standard of musicianship and he will kick my ass any time it is used, but that objective standard of musicianship is not all that music is. It’s sometimes hard to tell in an environment like Oberlin, and it’s not necessarily a good thing.
My feelings are all about ego. I’m letting my ego get out of hand, letting them influence my feelings. I need to keep practicing and at the point I put heart and soul into music, I’ll start improving. At this point I don’t have the confidence to be fully uninhibited. My ego will be the death of me. Got to get rid of the ego. Ego is attached to pride, and pride prevents humility, and that enhances inhibitions when talent is absent.
At dinner, I found out that “Hook” was showing at the Apollo. I went to the 7:10 showing. I got much more out of it than the first time I saw it in January. That movie would fit so perfectly into the film syllabus of the Religion 103 class I took last semester. Life, flying, it’s all about magic - Maggie and Jack, Peter Pan’s happy thoughts. Maggie+Jack=magic. Happy thoughts, miracles, and ordinary life. The role of belief and believing. Imagination to create. Imagination the key to creating our lives, the key to “flying”.
When religions speak of “following the Way”, they aren’t referring to a path to walk on or roads taken or not taken. I think it’s more of the manner or attitude towards living life or perceiving the world. It’s less of something linear, like a direction or something chosen. Maybe everyone already gets that and I’m only finding it out now. I don’t know anyone else’s nature. What I know of them is only what I know of them in myself. What I think about other people is only a reflection of myself and doesn’t reflect what they really are. It sounds so basic when articulated.
