Sure you can text, tweet, email, vine, post, poke, and pin until your thumbs are blue. But I think you want more and I think deep down you know that an artist’s calloused thumb holds more value than one that is digitally bruised.
So today, as you leave your homes may you enter the world and open the doors that open your eyes that opens your life to all that this place is and is meant to be.
May you, today, be the comma that shines a light for another to be a comma that shines a light for another to be a comma X infinity and beyond.
And now another way to say #LTMP.
I turn the music up,
Got my records on
I shut the world outside until the lights come on
Maybe the streets alight,
Maybe the trees are gone I feel my heart start beating to my favorite song
And all the kids they dance
All the kids all night
Until Monday morning feels another life I turn the music up
I’m on a roll this time
And heaven is in sight
I turn the music up, I got my records on From underneath the rubble sing a rebel song
Don’t want to see another generation drop
I’d rather be a comma, than a full stop
Maybe I’m in the black
Maybe I’m on my knees
Maybe I’m in the gap between the two trapezes
But my heart is beating and my pulses start
Cathedrals in my heart
As we saw, oh this light
I swear you emerge blinking into
To tell me it’s alright
As we soar walls Every siren is a symphony
And every tears a waterfall
Is a waterfall
Is a waterfall
Is a waterfall
Every teardrop
Is a waterfall
So you can hurt, hurt me bad
But still I’ll raise the flag
It was a waterfall
A waterfall
Every tear
Every tear
Every teardrop is a waterfall
One of the great pursuits of this life is to determine and discover what your music is and is to be. You do this by using your God-given talents, pursuing your passions, and adhering to the ideals that you find worthy of such pursuit. These are also known as your instruments.
But there is a cost.
To say yes to one thing, one must say no to another thing.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
Which is why so many choose noise. It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s a quick fix. It’s a life of instant gratification.
Music, on the other hand, requires romance…a long waltz in time with one’s instruments.
It’s the worth the cost as dividends are a friend of music.
What happens when the arts, a poetic experience, and the metaphor of music become the backbone of our lives, our families, and our economy?
I think only the future holds this answer, but it’s our role to move into the question and become the answer as the future unfolds.
You have a canvas. This canvas we speak of is your life. If you can, splash it with colors of joy, bravery, and whimsy…shadow it with purpose, meaning, and fullfilment…frame it with hope.
You have a stage. This stage is your business or your place to make change. And on that stage you probably have a phone that is a radio, that is a media company, that is the pony express, and that is your microphone and gateway to the world.
You have some sort of family…be it through blood or relationship. It’s your job to provide its theme.
This place is becoming less and less about science and arithmetic and more and more about the arts, music, and poetry.
This is what the sunrise has been trying to get us to hear.
Ashton.Gustafson 