02
History is always coming around. The times are always changing. Coming and going. For better or for worse. For better and for worse. Better for whom? Worse for whom? Only time will tell. "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Time tells that much all the time. "The poor will be with us always." Some things never change. "No matter how things are, somebody wants it to be different." "Everything could be more like it ought to be than it is." The work in the service of the good is never done. "The Good is the enemy of the Best." "The Best is the enemy of the Good." Perspective shifts see the enemy everywhere. "Who's on first?" "NO! Who's on second!" How do we live together in ways we all like? It would be easier to live together in ways we don't like, but are, at least, livable for everyone. How do we live together in ways that are livable for everyone? Tax everyone according to their means. Pay everyone a living wage adjustable to the cost of living. A fair and reasonable tax structure with no loopholes and no favoritism and good faith all the way around, is the solution to all of our problems today. And every day. So, why won't it fly? Because there are those of us who want more than we need to live the life we want to live-- which is different from the life that needs us to live it. Greed in the service of unquenchable desire is the source of all of our problems today. That is why "The more things change, the more they remain the same." If you want to change something, change that.
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01
On June, 25, 2014, I wrote, Our life is up to us. We actually have to live it. Why hold anything back? Why try to save ourselves from that which can save us? Only one thing means anything: Living our life the way it needs us to live it! At the end of the movie, Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli, reflecting on his career, said, “They ask ya, ‘What was the high point?’ The hall of fame, sellin’ all those records, pullin’ Sherry outta the hat?' It was all great. But the first time the four of us made that sound under the street light, our sound, when everything dropped away and all there was, was the music… that was the best.” The challenge for each of us is to find our music, and live it— to let the music live us— and see everything that happens to us, both positive and negative, as an opportunity to further align ourselves with the music, dance with what life brings us, and become who we are. We are afraid to do that, and think there is something better than that— like safety, and security, and never stepping out of line— because we’ve never stood under a street light and made the music only we can make. But the music is there waiting for us to show up. That was written six years ago and the music is still waiting. What's your music? What is your life? We don't have any idea because we have so many ideas, all of which revolve around having money and having it made. We want the fame and the fortune, but it's the music. Ask a musician if they know what Frankie Valli is talking about. Ask them if they can remember a time when it all dropped away and they became one with the music, and the music was playing them, singing them, and they disappeared into the music, were lost in the music, were the music. Ask them how often it happened. And what they would give for it to happen all the time. Can you remember anything like that happening to you? What do you think your equivalent to the music might be? Was? Could be? What life is waiting still, even yet, even now, for you to live it? What's holding you back? Why hold anything back?
