Get to the point

For the first half of my career, I was in radio news. I was trained by the three-minute newscast: Tell as much as you can as quickly and concisely as you can.

When I switched to newspapers, it took me awhile to adjust to adding the secondary and tertiary details that may still be important to the story but wouldn’t be vital enough to include in a 30- or 40-second synopsis. I think I’m still good at saying what needs to be said in an economical number of words.

That’s probably why I lose patience with a recent phenomenon in social media — the advertisement or essay that goes on and on and on before getting to the point. They tell a story that identifies the problem. Then they tell another story about trying to solve the problem, and a third story about another approach to the problem, and they hint that the real solution was out there to be found but not yet. You might have to read five minutes or more of beating around several bushes before the writer draws a conclusion or explains what’s on sale.

In this world of short attention spans and ever-shrinking time frames, what is the point of not getting to the point? especially if you’re trying to sell me a miracle cure? “Now that I have your attention, how long can I hold your attention?” It’s as if the real goal is to keep you reading or listening for as long as possible — the opposite of the original social media challenge to say it all in 140 characters.

I’m frustrated when I read an interesting introduction, click on “See more,” and discovered that I’ve been roped into an article that takes a dozen or more thumb flicks to scroll to the end.

This post is just shy of 325 words. That’s all it takes — more than it takes, really — to encourage writers not to be boring.

George Harrison reminded us

Listen to this post:

All things must pass. Nothing lasts forever.

That is a scary thought when life is going well, and an encouraging word when it isn’t.

In the middle of a wonderful experience, the knowledge that all things pass is a reason to savor the moment to its fullest. In the middle of an ordeal, the knowledge that all things pass is a reason for hope and an incentive to endure. There is “a time to mourn and a time to dance”; everything, indeed, has its season.

Sometimes these seasons end suddenly, and sometimes we have time to prepare as best as we can. The only certainty is that it will end. It’s a sad fact: Even if we are able to fulfill the vow that “till death do we part,” for example, we acknowledge in the vow that we will part one day.

Once bitten by this fact and exposed to the devastating pain of that parting, a person can withdraw and never emerge to share again. I think that’s a tragedy; I would not wish a lonely life as a hermit on my loved one after I’m gone. And we each are capable of giving all we have, as long as we live. Life does goes on after loss.

In the meantime, the most important message I can offer is to savor the time while it is happening. Let the knowledge that it will pass encourage you to love and live life with everything you’ve got.

The music place

Listen to this post:

I feel like traveling somewhere where music flows from every doorway and you can hear the dreams in the air wherever you step — not frustrated dreams but fulfilled dreams, because being in this place was the reason for dreaming. Money changers and merchants may think the music is about the money, but the value of music is in the music itself.

“I have a song, and I’m going to sing it,” the musicians declare. “Oh, I hope you love it and it touches your heart the way it touched mine, but the song exists to be heard, and now you can hear it, because I’m here to sing it and now it’s your song, too.”

Doorway after doorway, other songs emerge, until all the songs link together into one cacophonous song that shouts “Love” to all who have ears to hear.

“Music is God speaking,” one poet said.

“It soothes the savage breast,” said another.

I wish I could sing all day, and who’s to say that I can’t, or that I won’t? These songs are mine, your songs are yours, and they are ours when we share, and songs are meant to be shared.

And so the song-makers take refuge in every doorway and sing their songs, and people come to listen and join in.

I want to go to that place. I want to stay in that place all day and into the night, until I have all the music I need, and even then I will crave more, because music is love, and love is musical, and we all need love, and love is all we need.

What is that song you are singing?

Here is my song, too.

The words and the melody are dancing;

I can teach you the steps,

or you can make your own as they move you.

Funny, isn’t it, how just the thought of music has my fingers playing allegro across the page — the harmony may not be perfect but it feels just so; the illusion of perfect harmony is almost as good as the reality, or perhaps the off-key reality is as beautiful as the illusion, because it is music, and music is love, and love is all we need.

I want to make music and listen to music all day and every day. I suppose I should take time to eat and to sleep, but I want the music to keep going.

And so it does — there is music in the sighing of the wind, and rhythm in the turning of the clothes dryer, and music in the tires on the highway. The world is a symphony if we only stop to listen and hear what we’re hearing in its solemn and silly and somber and joyous totality.

What am I saying? What have I said? I will have to go back and read it, and perhaps it will look like nonsense, and perhaps it will look like common sense so obvious I should have felt it in my heart or thought it with my brain, because music is wizardly and holy and everywhere we go.

And that is where I’m going today.