the Eagles from their Hell Freezes Over Tour. Mellow stuff. I Can’t Tell You Why. Acoustic Hotel California. Desperado. Wasted Time. Such memories.
Slow day at the plantation today allowed me to do some cool stuff. Participated in a blogger conference call for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. That guy is impressive.
He talked about humility and how it doesn’t represent weakness. He is oh so right. I guess I never really thought about how arrogant we as a nation have become. I mean, yeah, I know that it is true but I never really applied it to foreign policy. I wish that more people would listen to him. Just listen and then decide for themselves.
DR brought an acoustic in today, not to play at the plantation; he was planning on playing again for a guy in the hospital. I talked him into showing me a couple of things to improve my playing, he’s so good. Why he is a slave at the plantation, I’ll never know. Yeah, I know, confidence, it affects us all I guess. He is that good. If only he believed in himself.
I think that is true of a lot of people, they are so talented, given gifts by God to use for His purpose, but never stepping out and using them in the name of security and peace of mind. They could do mind boggling things in this world but toil day after day at mundane tasks.
If there was one thing I would change about the world, it would be to give creative people higher respect. Artists, musicians, writers, actors – they bring such joy and stimulation to life.
Interesting topic. I was thinking about this yesterday in a roundabout way myself. I read an article by a psychologist that Shannon linked to where they talked about creative men and how they tend to peak early in their lives. They use Paul McCartney as a specific example.
Link
Does the fact that he hasn’t had a hit song make him any less creative than he was when he was younger? Does the fact that Bill Gates does things other than programming make him less of a programmer now than he was before?
All of this goes to say that I don’t think commercial success has all that much to do with actual talent. Some of the most talented creators I’ve ever known in my life will never be known by more than a handful of the people they know. I don’t just refer to just musicians here. Creativity extends to engineering, science, medicine, and virtually any field a person chooses. I think it’s really sad that people use commercial success as a measure of creative talent. It’s a reflection of our “rock star” obsessed culture IMO.
Absolutely creativity extends to those fields you listed. The only difference is that they get paid for it!
Seriously, you make a great point. So what if he hasn’t had a “hit”. My favorite band of all time is U2. They put out an album called Pop that failed miserably in the marketplace. But if you asked me, I would tell you that it was their best, most creative music EVER, period. Awesome album. But it didn’t sell.
And your alexis biggins site proves your point. Who cares if you are making money with your music? I’m listening to Pon Raul right now and smiling.
Isn’t that what it is about?
Don’t get me wrong, BigJ. If someone wanted to pay me for my music I certainly wouldn’t say no. But right now I’m just doing it for fun and learning. It makes me smile and if it makes you smile too then all the better. Like the line from “Sultans of Swing” goes:
And Harry doesn’t mind
If he doesn’t make the scene
He’s got a daytime job
He’s doing alright
Life is too short for me to worry about silly stuff like complaining about the hypocrisy of other folks. I guess I do dwell on the negative side of politics more often than not. But the way I look at that is that it’s something I have the power to change if I work at it. I can’t change the hypocrisy of others, and even if the hypocrites in question are Christians, it doesn’t mean all Christians are hypocrites any more than some bad politicians make all politicians bad. See last night’s banter with HeadShaker on LST open comments for context of what I’m talking about.
I saw those comments last night, briefly, then again this morning. It’s nothing new, been happening since the beginning of time. It’s just plain easier to focus on the hypocrisy of someone else than it is to change your own actions and heart.
For every hypocritical preacher out there, I can point to 99 that aren’t. Doesn’t matter though if that isn’t what someone is seeking.
And the fact is that the 1 hypocritical preacher does more damage to Christ than the other 99 do good because people seek validation for their unbelief, distrust, childhood abuse, any number of things. And that preacher will have to stand before God and face His wrath for that.