45 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
45 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
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title: A challenge I face in pursuing excellence
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layout: post
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---
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A challenge I face in pursuing excellence is... *[drum roll]*... finding others who pursue excellence.
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Okay, maybe that wasn't such a surprising revelation. As the saying goes, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man another".
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For me, it is not satisfactory enough to look to my contemporaries - I have looked centuries back, hoping to appreciate greatness.
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Without further ado, I share a list - off the top of my head - of works I look up to:
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In Classical Music,
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- Beethoven's Cello Sonata, Op. 102
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- Schubert's Winterreise
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In opera,
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- Bartók's "Duke Bluebeard's Castle"
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In Russian literature,
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- Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse, "Eugene Onegin"
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In children's literature,
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- Tolkien's "The Hobbit"
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Others:
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- a fairly modern film, Wong Kar-Wai's "In the mood for love"
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- A song by The Beatles, "Come together"
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In concluding, I note that if I have a small, puny mind, the world I see is a small, puny world. I wish for a mind that can see greatness in even the smallest thing - eyes that can see beauty and wonder.
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For example, can I learn, from a dog, how to be happy, while being held on a leash? Or, from a cat, how to meditate?
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I close with a quote from the classic tale, "The little prince":
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> “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
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*This post first appeared [on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6648108747728216064/).*
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