The Truth

Oscar Wilde said: "If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all." If you think about it, this applies to ALL art. That's why dissonant, incoherent contemporary music has failed so dramatically and resoundingly. Nobody is interested in listening to it a second time. Mascagni's opera, Cavalleria Rusticana, has been performed over 44,000 times since it was composed in the late 1800s - about 350 times per year. By comparison, the modern opera, Nixon in China, has perhaps been produced 10 times and performed 50 times since it premiered in 1987 in Houston, an average of 2 times per year. It may as well be dead.

The Truth

So, you feel disappointed after trying to accomplish something and it just does not work out no matter how hard you try? Thomas Edison tried hundreds of combinations before he hit upon a substance that would work as a good, effective filament for his light bulb. Winston Churchill walked for days through the jungle in an effort to get to safety. George Washington fought desperately at Valley Forge after the odds seemed completely against him and his little army. And so it goes. Perhaps the difference between great men and ordinary ones is the simple fact that they do not give up and we do. If you keep going, what have you got to lose? If you keep going, you just might accomplish something extraordinary.

The Truth

There was a story on NPR this morning about the low birth rates in developed countries. The story included some history about how birth rates were high when the nations (the human race) thought they could be doomed to extinction unless they seriously and assiduously multiplied and multiplied some more. Now that the threat of extinction seems to have disappeared, the focus on reproduction - at least in the Western world and Russia - has been lost. The truth is that we are now closer to becoming extinct than ever before. The nuclear arsenals stockpiled here and there are more than enough to destroy life on the earth 100 times over - except, perhaps, cockroaches. World leaders know this well but are doing their best to keep the lid on.