Dancing with the Universe
Good morning! I hope your Tuesday is off to a roaring start!
I have been concerned about what I’m doing here, with this newsletter. It’s kept me from writing for several days. I do not want to bring you things that are substandard, that do not contribute anything to the quality of your day. And I have worried that my style of authorship (sitting down every morning open to the Universe about what might come through me) might be producing exactly that.
But then I started listening to a book (one that I highly recommend) called Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within by Kenny Werner. I started it late last week, and have already had tears come to my eyes several times as I heard my own triumphs and pain expressed so beautifully in his words.
This book is geared toward musicians, obviously, but the lessons translate into the other areas of creativity in our lives — all of the arts, including business. Kenny (we’re buddies now) spends a great deal of time on the transcendent art of improvisation and the nature of that particular communion with the Universe.
I realized that what I’m doing here each morning that I sit down here is a sort of extemporaneous improvisation, with words rather than musical notes. Much like a musical improvisational solo, I have the framework in mind that I want to work from, and I have a few ideas about what I might cover as I start to play. I sit down most mornings at the keyboard and hit the first note.
So much of life is like that — from the extemporaneous speech or toast we find ourselves giving at a colleague’s birthday gathering, to winging it with confidence when a new type of problem emerges at work, to handling our child’s awkward questions with grace and even élan.
Practicing improvising is practicing living with grace and élan, dancing with the Universe in real time. And always, something worthwhile is created in the process.
My very best,
Philip