There are various levels of accomplishment in life: beginner, competent, master, virtuoso, and then genius. The master would be someone who is excellent at what they do, but they are playing by the rules of what they have been taught. This would be most of the people in the NBA, super athletes, far better than any of us could ever hope to be. Then there is the virtuoso, who is able to use masterful skills and then create and effortlessly innovate within them. Michael Jordan in the early 1990s, Joan Didion, Lady Gaga…people who astonish us. They seem to want to let us know that there is good, and then there is the beyond. See Prince playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with a dozen other incredible musicians, the way he looks at them then just takes off. He is letting them, and everyone else, know who is next level. Check out the look on their faces; it says everything. The virtuoso let loose.
Then there are these genius moments, for which we give people a lifetime pass for whatever else they may do: Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road, Amy Winehouse’s Back in Black, Nick Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, or Jordan in any NBA final. They get a pass to do whatever else they want, however cringe-worthy it may be, because they had that one genius moment. It is so easy to tear down the great ones; we want them to be incredible 24/7 for the rest of time. They are humans, just like us, and we would be best served to appreciate the amazingly moving thing they did for the genius that it was, however transitory, probably never to be repeated.
For us more earth-bound humans, it is still important to aim high, to try to be the best version of ourselves that we can be right now. Not looking back at who we were, but who we are now. This is not a financial or professional quest, it is more in the realm of the divine. We are so lucky to be here, to have become the people that we are today, that to aim for anything less than the best of who we are is not just to disappoint ourselves, but all our teachers, all our mentors, all those who helped us along the way. We will fall short, absolutely, and as we do, we will learn from it if we can always look to what we can level up to, and how we can become a better version of who we are. This is how to play big, how we engage with life to the highest. How can we master the life of who we are; where are the opportunities to have our genius moments, in whatever role we may be at that moment? Life is an incredibly short experience. Let’s aim high, let’s be the best we are, and show ourselves, those around us, and those younger than us what is possible. You deserve it.
Onward and upward,
David
