A Discontent that Satisfies

Today's blog will weave us thru 4 aphorisms.

1. Technology authenticates science.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

You can say that a particular scientific interpretation is correct, but technology weeds out the good, bad and ugly scientific interpretations.

Consider exhibit A: E=MC2, Einstein's famous formula essentially says that matter and energy are different forms of the same thing. This hypothesis was proven when the atom bomb was invented.

A more recent example: Scientists were recently able to levitate tiny balls using Quantum Mechanics:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478664,00.html

I'll let you read the details.

2. A miracle authenticates a prophet.

Jesus Christ, when He encountered a bed-ridden man turned to him, in front of a watching public and said, "Your sins are foregiven." When the religious leaders of His day asked who can forgive sins, but God Himself, Christ turned to the man and healed him, telling him to rise up and walk for all to see. Only God could do such a thing.

3. I don't protest WHAT people think. I sometimes protest HOW people think.

Now this is not to say that I have all the answers, but I have found that HOW I think is continuously authenticated in my music. I have been blessed to have excelled in my knowledge of music. As someone who does not hold a formal music degree, I'm able to think about it in ways that most musicians can't. That understanding has greatly helped me to advance even to the point that without a formal degree, I teach as an adjunct professor at a local university.

And HOW do I think? I take you back to an repeating, thematic aphorism of this blog:

4. Ask what, until you get to why and ask why until you get to who.

If I would have been happy to have simply been shown a C major chord on the piano, without asking questions, I would have never have grown like I have in music. Instead, I asked questions like:

What is a C major chord?
What makes it major?
What IS a major chord?
Why does it sound good in this song?
Why does it sound bad in this song?
What would happen if I inverted it? etc, etc......

I am confident that any of you who have excelled in a field, art or craft, etc., will find that you have excelled because of this type of thinking.

Don't be satisfied with the distractions of life. Don't be pacified with the shallow. Go as deep as you can. Turn over every rock. And guard your motives so that you will know the answers when they are staring right back at you.

That's what I strive to do. I see it validated every day of my life, in music and beyond...