Thought for the day...

[Larry Pattis]

[flaggerphil]

A very nice thought.

[Glennwillow]

Very pleasant thought to start the day, Larry!

- Glenn

[Flying Orca]

I have always understood a miracle to be an event that violates natural or physical laws, and Wikipedia seems to be in agreement. I haven't noticed a whole lot of that going on around me - in fact, I don't think I've ever seen it happen. Am I missing something?

[Earwitness]

Nature and physics have enough small miracles to get you started and perhaps you'll perceive some things not yet domesticated into boring old human understanding.

Originally Posted by Flying Orca

I have always understood a miracle to be an event that violates natural or physical laws, and Wikipedia seems to be in agreement. I haven't noticed a whole lot of that going on around me - in fact, I don't think I've ever seen it happen. Am I missing something?

[Flying Orca]

Originally Posted by Earwitness

Nature and physics have enough small miracles to get you started and perhaps you'll perceive some things not yet domesticated into boring old human understanding.

I'm not convinced nature and physics provide examples of things violating natural and physical laws - in fact, I'm pretty sure that those laws are derived from the consistently non-miraculous behaviour of nature and physical phenomena.

I have perceived some pretty "undomesticated" sensory input, but I had previously been rendered a rather unreliable witness.

[Herb Hunter]

Originally Posted by Earwitness

Nature and physics have enough small miracles to get you started and perhaps you'll perceive some things not yet domesticated into boring old human understanding.

I find human understanding anything but boring.

Originally Posted by Flying Orca

I have always understood a miracle to be an event that violates natural or physical laws, and Wikipedia seems to be in agreement. I haven't noticed a whole lot of that going on around me - in fact, I don't think I've ever seen it happen. Am I missing something?

Yes--the fact that the word miracle has other usages. See definitions 3 and 4:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/miracle

[SongwriterFan]

I figured Larry would get a "pass" for posting something like this.

Guess I was bound to be wrong SOMETIME.

[Flying Orca]

Originally Posted by GraceGuitars

Yes--the fact that the word miracle has other usages. See definitions 3 and 4:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/miracle

Ah, the sense of wonder. Yes, that's a fine thing indeed, and a day that passes without recognizing it and celebrating it is the poorer for it. Fair enough.

[Larry Pattis]

Some days I have a lower wonderment-threshold than other days...depends on a number of things, including coffee.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Flying Orca

I have perceived some pretty "undomesticated" sensory input, but I had previously been rendered a rather unreliable witness.

That sounds like a "child of the 60s" (i.e. I saw gawd, maaaan).

Tony

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Larry Pattis

Looking past one or another definition of "miracle" and taking in the message as a whole, I find it spot on. If we read anything about having "gratitude", what this post says is front and center to that whole concept.

If we put this in context of guitar (hmmmm, why would we do that...?), I have been learning some interesting things. I have long been interested in "composing" my own music on guitar. If anyone has listened to Larry's music, you will know that he composes truly beautiful music on guitar. Therefore, I assume he really "gets it". What I mean by "gets it" is the attention to detail - all the little things that go into making a piece of music and a performance of that music wondrous, rather than just something to fill up a few minutes of time with sound. In a sense, what is happening in each moment of that musical performance that makes it worth listening to and memorable.

In the past several months, I have taken up the ukulele. I have read again and again how, when seeking to tap into creativity, it is a good idea to create certain limits on the choices one has to make within whatever one is working with to create. The ukulele seems a natural for this with its four strings and short fretboard. I found a site that I have subscribed to for a year that teaches arranging and playing fingerstyle ukulele in a solo instrumental style. I am finding that it is the little things that many of us overlook while chasing whatever it is we are after, that really make whatever it is we are after - possible, and this site focuses on those - the spaces in the melody and layering music in, etc. I have not seen anything like this for guitar, so my choice to take a sojourn with the ukulele turned out to be exactly what I need at this point in time. I am becoming aware of the little things that I previously missed, that can make the difference between creating music that is irritating in its ineptness and something that I might want to listen to.

Back to Larry's original post - there is a lot going on in the moment in which we are living right now, that we never notice because we are usually either living in the past (reliving old memories, whether positive or otherwise) or in the future (looking forward to something that we think is going to happen or dreading something that we think is going to happen). Most of us do that and we miss what is happening right here, right now. If we think of life itself as a miracle, than it is the miracle of life happening around us right now that we are missing out on. It is those little things in the moment that make life a rewarding experience, and not the things that already happened and are done, or the things that might (or might not) happen in the future.

If that is difficult to perceive, I think the best way to understand it is to talk to somebody who has just beaten cancer or otherwise had his or her life spared recently enough to still remember in detail. My wife just went through that, so I do understand the significance of Larry's post.

Tony

[Flying Orca]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

That sounds like a "child of the 60s" (i.e. I saw gawd, maaaan).

I was born in the 60s, but that never stopped me from, well, much of anything, really.

[seannx]

Originally Posted by SongwriterFan

I figured Larry would get a "pass" for posting something like this.

Guess I was bound to be wrong SOMETIME.

Well, it looks like he did get a pass once the definition of miracle was established. So you maintain your PERFECT status.