May 5th, 2006

"Brian insisted repeatedly that his demeanour annoyed you."
-Rob Mackie, resident scapegoat and shit-disturbing court-jester

* * *

I remember a piano teacher I had as a teenager who used to tell me to play a piece twice as fast as I'd practiced it. Then half as fast. Then, play it with a metronome, despite its being an expressive piece.

He didn't do this to be vindictive or spiteful, he wanted me to get a feel for the piece from "different angle" (my words). He was impatient with how I learned a piece one way, and could then play it identically 37 times in a row. He wanted me to feel the piece and not just the mechanics of it.

For what it's worth, a professor in university gave up on me and my piano playing for the very same reason: Once I got comfortable with it, I stopped learning the piece and was content to "drive the same route to work every day." (Again, my words.)

Well, today is the first day in exactly one year that I read my horoscope, and it said this: You need to let something go in order to make way for something new.

Hmm ... is that right? It's a horoscope written by a kooky old woman, Porter, how right do you think it is? Well ... erm ... sometimes things are more right than fact, if you get my drift. And this statement really does fit into my conviction that somehow, somewhere, there is a Cosmic Balancing Book. Take something out of Column A, and you have to put it back into Column B. It feels to me as though it just ought to make that sort of sense.

So, as I evaluate myself today, I know that there are (finally, thankfully) changes I've been making, and I know that I cannot be "safe" about all things while I change some of them. If I make changes to my life, I know that there is a price for it. There is a price for everything: Knowing what it is and not begrudging the payment is the secret to accepting change.

And I wasn't going to "change my tune" until I accepted this fact: Change always comes with a price—though it may be an acceptable one.

Otherwise, I'd just have to go back to playing the piece the same old way again. And that would be a terrible shame now that the changes have started, wouldn't it? :-)

Rate my blog - Sign my guestbook - Email me - Go back to index