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Thursday, 4th of March 2010 at 10:04:11 PM
For the past six months I’ve had a cd by Townes Van Zandt recycling through my car stereo. I have a few other cds as well, most of which I enjoy but also most of which my wife is tired of hearing over and over.
But I keep come back to Townes who has a simple, earthy directness to his music.
One of the songs is called “Poncho and Lefty”. The song tells the tale of a bandit named Poncho and his blues singing sidekick, Lefty. Poncho is gunned down by the authorities in a Mexico desert and Lefty leaves for Ohio with a trail of suspicon that he might have tipped the Federales off for money.
When I first started listening to it, I thought it was a nice ballad. Later I thought that the story would make for a good “buddy” movie ala Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.
But over the past month, I’ve been thinking that the song is not about two separate people, but two sides of the same person: the adventurous/creative side versus the pragmatic survivor. The song talks about how many of us are the Judas to our own dreams and passions in return for what we believe to be a life of security and conformity.
I think about the misalignment of our dreams and actions often, because I do believe that it leads more to chronic stress than anything else. I also believe that it makes it that much more difficult for an organization to align its purpose with the individual. The more an organization can involve employees in ways which inspire their individual passions, then everyone wins.
Of course, work needs to get done. And not every task may seem to inspire passion in you, but if the bulk of what you are doing seems pointless and lifeless, then why are you doing it? That may not mean that you quit and pursue your dreams elsewhere (although it might) but it might mean thinking real hard about what it is you love to do and see if you can’t craft your job to do more of that – you’d be surprised at easy it might be to pull off; your boss is thirsting for employees who demonstrate initiative.
Townes’ song ends with Lefty growing old in a cheap hotel. But that is not how it needs to end for any of us. We have the ability to redeem ourselves from ourselves every day, if we choose to.
That’s worth singing about.
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Sunday, 3rd of January 2010 at 06:13:23 PM
During last week, I took the family to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. While the Museum has a lot of interesting work on display, I was particularly interested in one piece which I had read about in a book by Lewis Hyde, entitled Trickster Makes This World. It is a work by Marcel Duchamp entitled [...]
Monday, 28th of December 2009 at 10:29:31 AM
This is the gift-giving season. And, as we know, it is better to give than to receive. If you’re like me, you’ve bought and exchanged gifts (and perhaps had some of those gifts exchanged at the store afterwards) and, maybe, even now Aunt Minnie is wearing one of the sweaters you bought her and nephew [...]
Sunday, 29th of November 2009 at 04:46:30 PM
Thanksgiving Sunday is hardly the day to talk about keeping hungry. If you’re like me, you’ve had three days of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and pies, plus all the weird side dishes that your mother served and that you hated growing up but now can’t do without. You’re probably sitting in front of a TV, watching [...]
Friday, 27th of November 2009 at 07:02:06 AM
We learn to share in day one of kindergarten (if not long before). Of course, what we learn to “share” are things, like toys. Then we learn to share friends. We learn to share time. When we fall in love we learn to share our dreams and desires. Sharing is a [...]
Wednesday, 14th of October 2009 at 03:51:31 AM
I’m on a green tea kick and this weekend I was researching tea pots, specifically one called a Yixing tea pot. The Yixing is a clay pot and, according to the description, because it is clay, it is porous, which means that the surface area is many times larger than a traditional teapot. This provides, [...]
Sunday, 16th of August 2009 at 02:33:03 PM
There is a great TED talk given by Malcolm Gladwell (link here) in which Gladwell talks about the findings of Howard Moskowitz, a psychophysicist who has made a career out of consumer preferences.
In the early 1970’s, Pepsi asked Dr. Moskowitz to determine which percentage of Aspartame it should put into Diet Pepsi to give it [...]
Saturday, 8th of August 2009 at 08:14:10 AM
Two years ago, for reasons I won’t go into here, I bought a turntable. It was quite accidental, but now I find myself scouring e-bay and other sources for records. My wife thinks I’m crazy (or it’s another reason for her to think I’m crazy) but I now am totally into vinyl. Some say the [...]
Thursday, 6th of August 2009 at 04:21:30 AM
I was on a flight yesterday from San Antonio to Charlotte. A woman sat next to me and ahead of us were, it seemed, her parents. As we were taking off, the woman pulled out a pack of gum, offered a stick to each of her parents and turned and offered me one.
It was, as [...]
Monday, 3rd of August 2009 at 04:56:57 AM
Today’s New York Times has an interesting article about how people visit museums. The author juxtaposed the pre-technological age habit of “deep-diving” into literature and art versus today’s “smash-n-grab” approach (walk in to a museum, grab a headset, walk through, drop headset, have a latte).
I think that we all feel like we are skimming the [...]
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