Slow Music
“Youngster, take your time to find the prize. There’s no rush. Pace yourself. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is what they say, but until you experience it, that’s the only way.”
-Jon Batiste
Yesterday.
Oh, Yesterday.
I cannot tell how productive it was on a purely capitalist level. In fact, and somehow I’m afraid to admit this (why Ben?), I fell down a musical rabbit-hole. Toppled, tumbled, rushed down it with a heart-racing joy and urgency. I may still be down there, and this is my cathartic ladder to regain some semblance of post-modern composure, but the inner mystical part of myself is still wallowing in the warm bright waterfall pool of this music still. Even now.
My friend Nigel had passed on Jon Batiste’s name to me with a quick summation of the quote shared at the beginning of this journal. I did not listen immediately, I was not ready, God only knew. First I had to sojourn in the sun of Charleston for a week, give ear to the river upon my return, journal, write, speak with a few people of calm and inspiring things. I had to become slower. Much slower. And then, it popped back into my head and it arrived through my earbuds like nothing I have heard in quite some time.
Beethoven Blues. An Album by Jon Batiste and Ludwig Van Beethoven.
200 years in the making.
I grew up with classical music and I still very much enjoy it, but I have recently been loving the different arrangers and composers who have been recomposing this music. Max Richter, Peter Gregson have recomposed Vivaldi and Bach beautifully. But this was re-invention. Batiste’s work, now this is conversation. Heart to heart. Soul to mind.
Trying to describe it to you would be like retelling a joke I once heard, but haven’t quite remembered the punchline. You’ll smile and nod, but you won’t laugh with me. I can’t bring you into that moment and share it with you. But I can give you a taste of its fruit. Those things that arise in response to the soulful sounds of one man, a classical ghostly muse and a Steinway piano.
Picture
The first picture that came to mind was of the man who walks his German Shepherd every single day here in town. I have only spoken to him twice, but both times were memorable. He is simple in his speech, but sincere in his eye. I have not once seen that dog pull tight to the leash, or heard it bark. She puts new definition to the concept of “heel”. I have only ever rarely seen one walking without the other. He wears ragged white New Balance Shoes, and, most days, sunglasses; she wears a sincere and concentrated expression of intelligence.
Thoughts
And then my thoughts turned to the book I’m listening to about being “discipled by the internet” and making an intentional turn to wonder and mystery. Not everything needs an explanation, not everything moves at this pace, not all answers come quickly or even clearly. Become like a child and be saved.
And on Jon Batiste’s 7th Symphony Elegy track, I softly hear him breathing behind the sound of the notes.
And I recall his quote, and received it as a “youngster” full of wide-eyed wonder.
And I start to write this journal. I stop. Remove my hands from the keyboard. Fold them. I take time to ponder these thoughts. I leave room for others to join them.
Wisdom
I am always inviting others to be transparent, and so here is an example of what I’m inviting them into.
For 15 years I’ve been helping to uncover and tell stories. From the music industry to the consulting business and investing. Everything has been a pressure-cooker to uncover and develop authentic narratives that bring people closer together than they otherwise inherently would.
I hope that this has brought value to people’s lives, but it’s much like planting a tree that will not bring shade to anyone for years and years, and asking them to pay you top-dollar for it. I joke sincerely and often that this is the hardest service to sell, ever. Results are unquantifiable, the mission is subversive, we are undermining the bristles and pomp of the corporate to add some texture, life and humanity (maybe even art) to what I cannot ever believe is a strictly transactional workplace. It’s where most people spend most of their lives. I want to plant thoughtful gardens in them.
But,
it just.
Takes.
Time.
And time is money.
(Benjamin Franklin, I have respected you too much to forgive the coining of this one)
But time, really, is your life.
We spend our time to make money so that we can spend it on the things that will not add one single second to the time we have here on earth. But what if, by magical, mystical, musical playfulness, we could infuse wonder back into our time.
What if, instead of squirming in our chairs every time a client called us, we nabbed the chance to connect with them as a friend. I love talking business, it brings me joy to watch the strategic side of my brain do some powerlifting. But I love many more things too. I love to see beautiful design. I love to learn about a person’s hobbies. I love to hear their stories, their cares, their worries. I love to watch people having fun. I love to have fun with them, or to have fun alone. I love standing in loud rivers, I love the taste of bourbon in cold weather. All of these things require time, and while we watch an AI wave pour toward us I can see a few of us trying to surf it as a means to regain capacity for more humanity, while others fall prey to the undertow of pure exponential productivity growth.
When Jon created this album, he was not trying to make something he thought would sell, he was giving himself room to play (Diane Ackerman and Robin Wall Kimmerer would call this a very serious kind of play indeed) and to chat with someone 200 years his elder. He just invited us in, and I’m grateful for it.
So if I had to pin it down to this: I am on a journey to spending more of my days at the hard work of infusing playful and authentic sincerity into this world of ROI and deadlines. I want to plant gardens of ideas and art as stories in places where people only expect to find cogs and spreadsheets. I want to battle with my own smiling conviction, the notion that all “value” can or should be measured and I want to walk with people into a childlike believing that regardless of when it chooses to bloom, a good story is worth planting in this world and that its fruit will be sweet, attractive and nourishing to many.
Slow down. It takes time to find the prize. Pace yourself. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You can learn to love the slow music, and it might be painful, but as my buddy Solomon put it, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the sky.”
There we go.
