Have patience, patience is the key to all relief.
Rumi
*********************
One of the great awakenings that seems to take some people many years to discover is that "I don't know" is a perfectly legitimate answer to a question if it is the correct one. Some people want answers right away and are unwilling to take the time to find them.
In my younger years I was treated with criticism if I didn't know the answers. So I developed a trick of coming up with an answer even if it was a wrong one. It seems it was better to be wrong than to be ignorant. People are afraid of being ignorant. But we are all ignorant about most things. Ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing. Someone once said, ignorance is curable, stupidity is not. A person should not be abused for not knowing something if they haven't had the opportunity to exercise the time, trouble or patience to find out.
There is another truism involved in the matter of ignorance which is that we all know more than we think we do. A quiz show contestant who is under a constraint might not come up with the answer. But if he was given time, without the stress, and with the patience to think about it, he might in fact draw up the answer from the recesses of his mind.
One day I was standing on a New York City subway platform by myself reading a newspaper. A woman approached me and asked if the train stopped at a particular station. I put down the paper and looked ahead to think about it. But in the next breath she said, in a very scornful voice "Well, if you don't know, don't guess."
The NY subway system is very complex and I have lived there most of my life. If she had given me a few moments to think about it I could have drawn up that particular line in my mind and given her an answer. My answer would have been "yes," "no" or "I don't know." But since she decided to be rude about it, I went back to my newspaper. I could have directed her to a map on the subway wall, but she hadn't purchased the right for that.
People deserve their own time and patience. "Why don't you know?" is not the right question. "What do you think?" is. I have seen that work with young high school students when I was training them for a radio program of their own. Without knowing the first thing about broadcasting, they arrived at some remarkably workable ideas. When I queried one boy about it he said "Nobody ever asks us what we think."
We are not "supposed to know" everything about life. It would be very boring if we did. Some problems get solved right away, others take time and some take a long time. But patience is one of the most important tools for getting to the answer of anything.
DB - The Vagabond
*****************
Spring is a-comin' in.
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Illusions
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
Shakespeare
*********************
Are you who you are? Or are you what I make of you, what I make you out to be?
Are you just a figure in my dream? And if that is who you are, what are you doing in my dream?
I perceive you with dimensions and controls.
I may give you gifts hoping to please you, But who is it I'm hoping to please? Is it you, or is it my illusion of you?
I may have a photograph of you but if so you are only a two dimensional transparency. I have a photograph of myself but there is nothing to me but a head and half a face.
There are people in my dreams. They have faces and bodies that move and speak to me. Are they real, or illusions, or only what I make of them?
I may dream of you. If you speak to me in my dream how do I know it is really you or just my illusion of you? How do I know it is not really you? Are you really who you are in my dream and not in my illusions about you? Is what I make of you in my dream more of who you are than who you are?
I may sit along the rocky shore, watch the tide come in and think of you. Who is it I'm thinking of? Is it you, or is it just the face and figure of my dream?
Maybe we once did something together. I remember it vividly, I think. But you remember it differently. Or maybe you don't remember it. What was it? The shadows are too dense, the well is too deep.
The illusions of life spin around me like the sun and moon, the seasons and the tides.
You may come to visit. We have supper, tell stories and laugh. We have a good time together. But neither one of us knows who the other one is. Because we don't know who we are.
DB - The Vagabond
Shakespeare
*********************
Are you who you are? Or are you what I make of you, what I make you out to be?
Are you just a figure in my dream? And if that is who you are, what are you doing in my dream?
I perceive you with dimensions and controls.
I may give you gifts hoping to please you, But who is it I'm hoping to please? Is it you, or is it my illusion of you?
I may have a photograph of you but if so you are only a two dimensional transparency. I have a photograph of myself but there is nothing to me but a head and half a face.
There are people in my dreams. They have faces and bodies that move and speak to me. Are they real, or illusions, or only what I make of them?
I may dream of you. If you speak to me in my dream how do I know it is really you or just my illusion of you? How do I know it is not really you? Are you really who you are in my dream and not in my illusions about you? Is what I make of you in my dream more of who you are than who you are?
I may sit along the rocky shore, watch the tide come in and think of you. Who is it I'm thinking of? Is it you, or is it just the face and figure of my dream?
Maybe we once did something together. I remember it vividly, I think. But you remember it differently. Or maybe you don't remember it. What was it? The shadows are too dense, the well is too deep.
The illusions of life spin around me like the sun and moon, the seasons and the tides.
You may come to visit. We have supper, tell stories and laugh. We have a good time together. But neither one of us knows who the other one is. Because we don't know who we are.
DB - The Vagabond
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Mental Might
Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music.
Giocchino Rossini
********************
Most people, if they are not opera lovers, don't know anything about Rossini except for two things, the famous Figaro aria (Figaro, Figaro) and the William Tell Overture, (thanks to the Lone Ranger), but then only the last part of it.
That Rossini was a genius there is no doubt. He wrote 36 operas, both comic and tragic, beginning at about the age of 12. As a young man he went to hear a performance of an opera by one of the established composers. A day or two after, he went to see the composer with the voice and piano score of the composer's opera which Rossini had written out from memory. He said that if he had another week he could give him the score with all the orchestrations.
That was an amazing feat of memory. But it's not that unusual. In the 17th Centry a man named Grigori Allegri wrote many religious works for the Vatican. One of them composed for Holy Week, Miserere Mei, was considered by the Pope, Urban VIII so beautiful he decreed it should never leave the Vatican and should never be published. But in 1770 Mozart went to the Vatican, heard the piece, went home and copied it out from memory. It eventually found it's way to England where it was printed and so now we have the pleasure of hearing it.
There are people who can go to a lecture and then go and copy it out from memory word for word. There are chess masters who can recall every move of a chess game they played yeas ago, and painters who can reproduce a painting they once saw.
That kind of memory totally astonishes me. I will recognize a piece of music if I've heard it once and a film, once I've seen it. But I could never reproduce anything as faithfully as those masters do. I wouldn't even attempt it.
I can remember roles I played years ago, but that's because I went through them a great many times, not once.
The fact that some people are capable of that kind of retention and recall is a sign that most of us are capable of more than we do, at least as far as mentality is concerned. That's a truism. No one would doubt it. But for most of us those who can exercise such extreme mental abilities seemingly without much effort is a challenge. Are we up to it?
DB
*******************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Giocchino Rossini
********************
Most people, if they are not opera lovers, don't know anything about Rossini except for two things, the famous Figaro aria (Figaro, Figaro) and the William Tell Overture, (thanks to the Lone Ranger), but then only the last part of it.
That Rossini was a genius there is no doubt. He wrote 36 operas, both comic and tragic, beginning at about the age of 12. As a young man he went to hear a performance of an opera by one of the established composers. A day or two after, he went to see the composer with the voice and piano score of the composer's opera which Rossini had written out from memory. He said that if he had another week he could give him the score with all the orchestrations.
That was an amazing feat of memory. But it's not that unusual. In the 17th Centry a man named Grigori Allegri wrote many religious works for the Vatican. One of them composed for Holy Week, Miserere Mei, was considered by the Pope, Urban VIII so beautiful he decreed it should never leave the Vatican and should never be published. But in 1770 Mozart went to the Vatican, heard the piece, went home and copied it out from memory. It eventually found it's way to England where it was printed and so now we have the pleasure of hearing it.
There are people who can go to a lecture and then go and copy it out from memory word for word. There are chess masters who can recall every move of a chess game they played yeas ago, and painters who can reproduce a painting they once saw.
That kind of memory totally astonishes me. I will recognize a piece of music if I've heard it once and a film, once I've seen it. But I could never reproduce anything as faithfully as those masters do. I wouldn't even attempt it.
I can remember roles I played years ago, but that's because I went through them a great many times, not once.
The fact that some people are capable of that kind of retention and recall is a sign that most of us are capable of more than we do, at least as far as mentality is concerned. That's a truism. No one would doubt it. But for most of us those who can exercise such extreme mental abilities seemingly without much effort is a challenge. Are we up to it?
DB
*******************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Faith Of Nachshon
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
Pablo Picasso
******************
No matter what we do there is some degree of inspiration necessary and connected to it. But sometimes gaining that inspiration is a major test of faith.
According to the Zohar, a centuries old document of Jewish lore and Biblical interpretation, The Red Sea did not part until a man named Nachshon walked into it. Though nothing happened at first he didn't turn back but walked on with absolute certainty. When he reached the danger point and the water was up to his neck, the sea parted for the Israelites.
The point of this story is clear. We have to make the effort if we want to achieve the result and we have to have the certainty that there is inspiration to be had from our efforts. Simply put it's the old saying "God helps those who help themselves."
Considering the circumstances Nachshom obviously saw that crossing The Red Sea was their only alternative, so he set to it. Whether we are writing a novel, painting a picture, designing a building, raising a barn, financing a project or solving a scientific problem there are solutions that we haven't found yet and maybe don't even know are there.
I have noticed this to be true so many times in my life that I have come to have the faith of a Nochshon about many things. I stare at the problems confronting me and I despair and give up, for a moment. But then I pick up a pen or a brush, or I sit down at the keyboard and set to it. It is almost miraculous sometimes what happens, a parting of the waters. Where did that inspiration come from? Where did those answers emerge from? How did that happen?
I don't know. I just keep walking to the other side of it. All I know is that it found me working.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Pablo Picasso
******************
No matter what we do there is some degree of inspiration necessary and connected to it. But sometimes gaining that inspiration is a major test of faith.
According to the Zohar, a centuries old document of Jewish lore and Biblical interpretation, The Red Sea did not part until a man named Nachshon walked into it. Though nothing happened at first he didn't turn back but walked on with absolute certainty. When he reached the danger point and the water was up to his neck, the sea parted for the Israelites.
The point of this story is clear. We have to make the effort if we want to achieve the result and we have to have the certainty that there is inspiration to be had from our efforts. Simply put it's the old saying "God helps those who help themselves."
Considering the circumstances Nachshom obviously saw that crossing The Red Sea was their only alternative, so he set to it. Whether we are writing a novel, painting a picture, designing a building, raising a barn, financing a project or solving a scientific problem there are solutions that we haven't found yet and maybe don't even know are there.
I have noticed this to be true so many times in my life that I have come to have the faith of a Nochshon about many things. I stare at the problems confronting me and I despair and give up, for a moment. But then I pick up a pen or a brush, or I sit down at the keyboard and set to it. It is almost miraculous sometimes what happens, a parting of the waters. Where did that inspiration come from? Where did those answers emerge from? How did that happen?
I don't know. I just keep walking to the other side of it. All I know is that it found me working.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Escaping From Prison
If there is any hope for love at all,
Some walls must fall.
Peter, Paul and Mary
**********************
Everywhere I look people seem to be building walls. Walls are generally built to keep people out not so much to keep people in, although prison walls do a good job of that.
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," So wrote Robert Frost in "Mending Wall."
And there's this from Cole Porter "Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in. "
There's a street in New York called Wall Street. There used to be a real wall there, It was built by the Dutch in the 17th Century using African Slaves, to keep out the Indian Tribes. Later on the British tore it down.
The Great Wall of Chine, built by Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, during the Ch'in Dynasty over 2,000 years ago, still stands but it's a tourist attraction today.
In 1963 construction began on the Berlin Wall, officially known as the "Anti-fascist protection wall". In 1989 it came down. Pieces of it made their way around the world. a large chunk of it was donated to the City of New York. It was placed in an indoor pocket park. I went there one day to have a coffee and sit. I can't imagine anything more sinister looking than that wall.
When I had my classical radio program in New York City I sometimes interviewed musicians who would come and visit. One afternoon I saw a pretty redheaded girl playing her violin on the sidewalk and doing it very well. I approached her and introduced myself. She had a German accent. I explained about my radio program and said I would like to interview her. I gave her my card and asked her to call.
She didn't. But about a year later a conductor friend was giving a concert with his orchestra. I went. On the program was a Mozart violin concerto and there she was as the soloist. After the concert she and the conductor and I went out for a bite to eat and I reminded her who I was and asked her again if she would come to the radio station. This time she accepted.
She arrived with a legal pad covered in notes. With every question I asked she would flip through the pages to find the answer and read it off very fast with her German accent. She began to answer one of my questions by saying "Well, when we escaped from East Berlin, we....."
I stopped her right there. "Tell me about that." She put the note pad aside and calmly told me this amazing story.
She was studying with a teacher in East Berlin who told her that she must go and learn from a certain teacher at the Juilliard School in New York. So her parents arranged passage on a train that was going to break through one of the check points into West Berlin. I think she told me she was 14. Her parents hid her and her violin on the floor, under the seat.
They made it to West Berlin and then to Switzerland and, eventually, she made it to New York where she was studying with that very teacher when I met her.
Her name is Gudrun Schaumann and I'm pleased to see that she has made recordings and is performing as a soloist all over the world, including East Berlin.
There are a lot of walls, social walls, ethnic walls, political walls, religious walls. Ah, but those are for another day.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Some walls must fall.
Peter, Paul and Mary
**********************
Everywhere I look people seem to be building walls. Walls are generally built to keep people out not so much to keep people in, although prison walls do a good job of that.
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," So wrote Robert Frost in "Mending Wall."
And there's this from Cole Porter "Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in. "
There's a street in New York called Wall Street. There used to be a real wall there, It was built by the Dutch in the 17th Century using African Slaves, to keep out the Indian Tribes. Later on the British tore it down.
The Great Wall of Chine, built by Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, during the Ch'in Dynasty over 2,000 years ago, still stands but it's a tourist attraction today.
In 1963 construction began on the Berlin Wall, officially known as the "Anti-fascist protection wall". In 1989 it came down. Pieces of it made their way around the world. a large chunk of it was donated to the City of New York. It was placed in an indoor pocket park. I went there one day to have a coffee and sit. I can't imagine anything more sinister looking than that wall.
When I had my classical radio program in New York City I sometimes interviewed musicians who would come and visit. One afternoon I saw a pretty redheaded girl playing her violin on the sidewalk and doing it very well. I approached her and introduced myself. She had a German accent. I explained about my radio program and said I would like to interview her. I gave her my card and asked her to call.
She didn't. But about a year later a conductor friend was giving a concert with his orchestra. I went. On the program was a Mozart violin concerto and there she was as the soloist. After the concert she and the conductor and I went out for a bite to eat and I reminded her who I was and asked her again if she would come to the radio station. This time she accepted.
She arrived with a legal pad covered in notes. With every question I asked she would flip through the pages to find the answer and read it off very fast with her German accent. She began to answer one of my questions by saying "Well, when we escaped from East Berlin, we....."
I stopped her right there. "Tell me about that." She put the note pad aside and calmly told me this amazing story.
She was studying with a teacher in East Berlin who told her that she must go and learn from a certain teacher at the Juilliard School in New York. So her parents arranged passage on a train that was going to break through one of the check points into West Berlin. I think she told me she was 14. Her parents hid her and her violin on the floor, under the seat.
They made it to West Berlin and then to Switzerland and, eventually, she made it to New York where she was studying with that very teacher when I met her.
Her name is Gudrun Schaumann and I'm pleased to see that she has made recordings and is performing as a soloist all over the world, including East Berlin.
There are a lot of walls, social walls, ethnic walls, political walls, religious walls. Ah, but those are for another day.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Monday, March 1, 2010
Like
The results are in and have been carefully tabulated. The figure is 782. The number of times your teenager used the word "like" last week.
Are You Famous Yet?
Everybody wants to be somebody. Nobody wants to grow.
Goethe
*****************
"In the future everyone will have their fifteen minutes of fame." So said Andy Warhol: Have you had yours yet? No? Well, don't worry about it. Fame is a phantom. Fame will get you to the pitchers mound, but it won't win the game. Besides why be famous for 15 minutes? Life is bigger than that.
When I was a boy I kept hearing my mother say "You've got to learn to make something of yourself." In my childish but not stupid mind, I interpreted that to mean that according to my mother I was nothing and I didn't know how to become something. The ethic of the day was that one gained a position in life, that one took one's place in society and kept it. Any other type of life was considered a failure. Along with one's position in life came a label. What do you do? "I'm a carpenter." Not, "I make furniture out of wood." If you were a master carpenter then you were known as "a cabinet maker."
A man could have such a label and be proud of it but a label does not define a man. It's a convenient thing to put on your tax return but you know even when you do it that your life is much more than that. The danger is falling into the old habit of treating the label as your position in the world. Because then you settle for it, It's a secure mask. You don't have to look past it.
I have had positions, and some fame. Not movie star or professional ball player fame, but some degree of celebrity, particularly as a broadcaster in New York. But I knew, even when I saw my name in the paper and deposited my nice check, how gossamer the whole thing was. Not only because I could be forgotten about but even more how easy it would be to forget myself, accept the secure mask of a label and never face growing anywhere, in anyway. So I left that job, that label. People thought I was crazy to give up such a "position." It was risky, there's no denying that, to go back into a career as an actor. There was no security, the income was variable and the fame, such as it was, was intermittent. But none of those things concerned me. What did concern me was learning who I was, becoming who I was, growing into a real position of reality and fulfillment. So if someone asked me what I was I could say "I'm an actor" but the real answer to that questions was much too complicated to explain to anyone. "What do you do?" "I live."
DB
***************
Goethe
*****************
"In the future everyone will have their fifteen minutes of fame." So said Andy Warhol: Have you had yours yet? No? Well, don't worry about it. Fame is a phantom. Fame will get you to the pitchers mound, but it won't win the game. Besides why be famous for 15 minutes? Life is bigger than that.
When I was a boy I kept hearing my mother say "You've got to learn to make something of yourself." In my childish but not stupid mind, I interpreted that to mean that according to my mother I was nothing and I didn't know how to become something. The ethic of the day was that one gained a position in life, that one took one's place in society and kept it. Any other type of life was considered a failure. Along with one's position in life came a label. What do you do? "I'm a carpenter." Not, "I make furniture out of wood." If you were a master carpenter then you were known as "a cabinet maker."
A man could have such a label and be proud of it but a label does not define a man. It's a convenient thing to put on your tax return but you know even when you do it that your life is much more than that. The danger is falling into the old habit of treating the label as your position in the world. Because then you settle for it, It's a secure mask. You don't have to look past it.
I have had positions, and some fame. Not movie star or professional ball player fame, but some degree of celebrity, particularly as a broadcaster in New York. But I knew, even when I saw my name in the paper and deposited my nice check, how gossamer the whole thing was. Not only because I could be forgotten about but even more how easy it would be to forget myself, accept the secure mask of a label and never face growing anywhere, in anyway. So I left that job, that label. People thought I was crazy to give up such a "position." It was risky, there's no denying that, to go back into a career as an actor. There was no security, the income was variable and the fame, such as it was, was intermittent. But none of those things concerned me. What did concern me was learning who I was, becoming who I was, growing into a real position of reality and fulfillment. So if someone asked me what I was I could say "I'm an actor" but the real answer to that questions was much too complicated to explain to anyone. "What do you do?" "I live."
DB
***************
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