Performance and the Free Will

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and this is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. The debate between talent and hard work is a dynamic one. Is it raw talent that carries the day or practice and dedication that reigns? I remember deciding when I was 11 or so, on hearing my recorded singing voice played back on my cousin's new cassette recorder, that I couldn't sing.

How that marked my life, because I thought, wrongly, that you were born with singing talent or not.

Wish I could redo that decision.

Later in life, I heard about Vladimir Horovitz’s statement late in his life that if he hadn't practiced for one day, he would hear the difference. For two days, his wife would hear the difference. Three days with no practice, and the audience would notice.

A poster child for hard work.

Because becoming good at anything requires both talent and dedication, right? And probably not in equal measure. After all, we get in the way of our own success a lot, don't we?

Performance and Free Will, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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Paradise as Reality, Not Imagination

Memories of paradise. That's not just a great dream sequence or catchy movie title. That's something that resonates through almost every culture on Earth. 

The Roman poet, Tacitus, wrote in the first century A.D. about how humans lived following the prompting of their own nature, which led to righteous actions.

In India, the story has been passed on of how all humans were saintly.

The Chinese sage, Chuang Tzu, wrote about an age of perfect virtue.

And of course, the Biblical story speaks about Eden, a Garden of harmony and peace and oneness with God.

In Portugal, there is a beautiful word that doesn't really have a translation into English: saudades. It means a state of deep yearning for someone or something that's absent, and "indolent dreaming wistfulness." 

This is what we feel in relation to Paradise. That memory resonates in our hearts and somehow is behind our drives to accomplish and improve.

Paradise as Reality, not Imagination, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head.

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