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title: A challenge I face in pursuing excellence
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A challenge I face in pursuing excellence is... *[drum roll]*... finding others who pursue excellence.

Okay, maybe that wasn't such a surprising revelation. As the saying goes, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man another".

For me, it is not satisfactory enough to look to my contemporaries - I have looked centuries back, hoping to appreciate greatness.

Without further ado, I share a list - off the top of my head - of works I look up to:

In Classical Music,

- Beethoven's Cello Sonata, Op. 102
- Schubert's Winterreise

In opera,

- Bartók's "Duke Bluebeard's Castle"

In Russian literature,

- Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse, "Eugene Onegin"

In children's literature,

- Tolkien's "The Hobbit"

Others:

- a fairly modern film, Wong Kar-Wai's "In the mood for love"
- A song by The Beatles, "Come together"

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.

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?

I close with a quote from the classic tale, "The little prince": 

> “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

*This post first appeared [on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6648108747728216064/).*