Turning Negative Thinkers Into Positive Ones – The New York Times

This article has been rattling around in my brain since I read it. Jane Brody connects finding pleasure in life to good health. I like that. She has a handy dandy list at the end of her article for fostering positive emotions in oneself.

This morning I am thinking about two things: How lucky I am. This is in stark contrast to  how many misfortunes I am witnessing in the lives of others at this time. The first makes me feel grateful, the second sad.

These are not necessarily in opposition. In other words I don’t want to gloat about how good I have it at the expense of others going through hard times.

I regularly feel grateful. Grateful to be living a fulfilled life with the woman I love. Grateful to have a church job at this time that fits me so well. Grateful to make music and read and think. If you read this blog at all you will stumble across my occasional  gratitude and unreasonable optimism.

However, right now I seem to know many people who are going through a tough time.  A loved one dies of an overdose of illegal drugs, a parent is dying, a husband suffers from dementia, someone copes with a spouse’s changing sexuality, someone buries a companion of many years and then relapses into a loss of cognition. Believe it or not these are more. Recently a composer friend of mine on Fecesboogers posted a self pity rant. What do I have to show for sixty years of service to music and church? he wrote.  It was weird to read. I couldn’t help but see a mirror of my own self pity at its worst.

Although legacy has never interested me that much.

I think it helps to read the Greeks and see personal struggles in terms of tragedy and fate, as part of being alive.

Although I believe we have more control of our fate than we usually assume. But things do happen to people. And it can seem random when loved ones die or submit to feelings of self pity or addictions.

Tough stuff.

I left a message and emailed this harpsichord builder and repairman yesterday (Click on the pic to link to his website). He lives in Ann Arbor. I am hopeful he will welcome working on my instrument and not charge me too much to get it back into working order. I’m not sure how I will transport it there. He does mention making arrangements for transporting so that might work. I bet my boss could come up with a way for me to get the harpsichord to the shop and back. Anyway, I haven’t heard back from him.

How to End the Politicization of the Courts – The New York Times

I agree with David Leonhardt that Republicans have largely gotten us into a partisan judiciary situation. It will continue according to Leonhardt until it is in the best interest of both parties to have a judiciary that works more outside of current politics.

BERNARDINE EVARISTO – Writer

You wouldn’t think reading a scholarly article on Derek Walcott would turn you on to new vibrant writers. This writer is intriguing to me and is now on my list of authors to check out more thoroughly. Like Walcott she has written a book length poem as well as several other works.