LISTEN TO WHAT THIS KID IS DOING

[Lou Gold]

Pure spontaneous innovation and playfulness with a giant audience bridging the gap between me and we.

I believe this is profoundly spiritual.

[Martin_]

That's great, Lou, but, ehhh... i believe you only posted a picture, and no link to the audio, no?

[Lou Gold]

That's great, Lou, but, ehhh... i believe you only posted a picture, and no link to the audio, no?

click on it -- the picture is the link

[Martin_]

now it works. it didn't before. no idea why.

[Lou Gold]

Currently, I'm mostly contemplating the evolution of Jacob Collier's genius for harmony, watching it evolve from youtubes in his room and voices mined across the internet to new tech instruments such the harmonizer to his current exploration of building massive audiences into his spontaneous improvisations. These are truly novel adventures reaching from a performative "me" toward a performative "we" in which the whole becomes more important than an especially talented part. It might someday be called "distributed composing." It actually gives me hope that the youth will find or invent more harmonious ways in our terribly contentious and competitive times.

[AshvinP]

Currently, I'm mostly contemplating the evolution of Jacob Collier's genius for harmony, watching it evolve from youtubes in his room and voices mined across the internet to new tech instruments such the harmonizer to his current exploration of building massive audiences into his spontaneous improvisations. These are truly novel adventures reaching from a performative "me" toward a performative "we" in which the whole becomes more important than an especially talented part. It might someday be called "distributed composing." It actually gives me hope that the youth will find or invent more harmonious ways in our terribly contentious and competitive times.

What we are, what we have, all our good qualities are the result of our own actions in the past. What we lack in physical, moral, or mental excellence may yet be ours in the future.

Exactly as we cannot do otherwise than take up our lives each morning where we laid them down the preceding night, so by our work in previous lives have we made the conditions under which we now live and labor, and are at present creating the conditions of our future lives. Instead of bemoaning the lack of this or that faculty which we covet, we must set to work to acquire it. If one child plays beautifully on a musical instrument, with hardly an effort at learning, while another, despite persistent effort, is a poor player in comparison, it merely shows that one expended the effort in a previous life and is easily regaining a former proficiency, while the efforts of the other have been started only in the present life, and in consequence we see the uphill work. But, if the latter persist, he may, even in the present life, become superior to the former unless the former constantly improves. That we do not remember the effort made in acquiring a faculty by hard work is immaterial, it does not alter the fact that the faculty remains with us.

Genius is the hall-mark of the advanced soul, which by hard work in many previous lives has developed itself in some way beyond the normal achievements of the race. It reveals a glimpse of the degree of attainment which will be the common possession of the coming Race. It cannot be accounted for by heredity, which applies only in part to the dense body and not to qualities of the soul. If genius could be accounted for by heredity, why is there not a long line of mechanical ancestry previous to Thomas Edison, each more capable than his predecessor? Why does not genius propagate itself? Why is not Siegfried the son, greater than Richard Wagner, the father?

In cases where the expression of genius depends upon the possession of specially constructed organs, requiring ages of development, the Ego naturally is reborn in a family the Egos of which have, for generations, labored to build a similar organism. That is why twenty-nine musicians of more or less genius were born in the Bach family during a period of two hundred and fifty years. That genius is an expression of the soul and not of the body is shown by the fact that it did not gradually improve and reach efflorescence in the person of John Sebastian Bach, but that the proficiency which reached its highest expression in him towered high above ancestors and descendants alike.

The body is simply an instrument, the work it yields being dependent upon the Ego which guides it, as the quality of the melody is dependent upon the musician's skill, aided by the timbre of the instrument. A good musician cannot fully express himself on a poor instrument, and even upon the same instrument, all musicians do not and cannot play alike. Because an Ego seeks rebirth as the son of a great musician it does not necessarily follow that he must be a still greater genius, as would be the case if the physical heredity were a fact and genius were not a soul-quality.

[Lou Gold]

Currently, I'm mostly contemplating the evolution of Jacob Collier's genius for harmony, watching it evolve from youtubes in his room and voices mined across the internet to new tech instruments such the harmonizer to his current exploration of building massive audiences into his spontaneous improvisations. These are truly novel adventures reaching from a performative "me" toward a performative "we" in which the whole becomes more important than an especially talented part. It might someday be called "distributed composing." It actually gives me hope that the youth will find or invent more harmonious ways in our terribly contentious and competitive times.

What we are, what we have, all our good qualities are the result of our own actions in the past. What we lack in physical, moral, or mental excellence may yet be ours in the future.

Exactly as we cannot do otherwise than take up our lives each morning where we laid them down the preceding night, so by our work in previous lives have we made the conditions under which we now live and labor, and are at present creating the conditions of our future lives. Instead of bemoaning the lack of this or that faculty which we covet, we must set to work to acquire it. If one child plays beautifully on a musical instrument, with hardly an effort at learning, while another, despite persistent effort, is a poor player in comparison, it merely shows that one expended the effort in a previous life and is easily regaining a former proficiency, while the efforts of the other have been started only in the present life, and in consequence we see the uphill work. But, if the latter persist, he may, even in the present life, become superior to the former unless the former constantly improves. That we do not remember the effort made in acquiring a faculty by hard work is immaterial, it does not alter the fact that the faculty remains with us.

Genius is the hall-mark of the advanced soul, which by hard work in many previous lives has developed itself in some way beyond the normal achievements of the race. It reveals a glimpse of the degree of attainment which will be the common possession of the coming Race. It cannot be accounted for by heredity, which applies only in part to the dense body and not to qualities of the soul. If genius could be accounted for by heredity, why is there not a long line of mechanical ancestry previous to Thomas Edison, each more capable than his predecessor? Why does not genius propagate itself? Why is not Siegfried the son, greater than Richard Wagner, the father?

In cases where the expression of genius depends upon the possession of specially constructed organs, requiring ages of development, the Ego naturally is reborn in a family the Egos of which have, for generations, labored to build a similar organism. That is why twenty-nine musicians of more or less genius were born in the Bach family during a period of two hundred and fifty years. That genius is an expression of the soul and not of the body is shown by the fact that it did not gradually improve and reach efflorescence in the person of John Sebastian Bach, but that the proficiency which reached its highest expression in him towered high above ancestors and descendants alike.

The body is simply an instrument, the work it yields being dependent upon the Ego which guides it, as the quality of the melody is dependent upon the musician's skill, aided by the timbre of the instrument. A good musician cannot fully express himself on a poor instrument, and even upon the same instrument, all musicians do not and cannot play alike. Because an Ego seeks rebirth as the son of a great musician it does not necessarily follow that he must be a still greater genius, as would be the case if the physical heredity were a fact and genius were not a soul-quality.

Nice quote, Ashvin. I'm delighted to find myself in harmony with your post. I would want to add, and I think you would agree, that we karmically interact not only with our own past lives evolution but with a whole constellation of beings accompanying us. I think we say "yes" (or "no") to the call and then show up and do our work as best as we can, living and learning all along the way.

[AshvinP]

Currently, I'm mostly contemplating the evolution of Jacob Collier's genius for harmony, watching it evolve from youtubes in his room and voices mined across the internet to new tech instruments such the harmonizer to his current exploration of building massive audiences into his spontaneous improvisations. These are truly novel adventures reaching from a performative "me" toward a performative "we" in which the whole becomes more important than an especially talented part. It might someday be called "distributed composing." It actually gives me hope that the youth will find or invent more harmonious ways in our terribly contentious and competitive times.

What we are, what we have, all our good qualities are the result of our own actions in the past. What we lack in physical, moral, or mental excellence may yet be ours in the future.

Exactly as we cannot do otherwise than take up our lives each morning where we laid them down the preceding night, so by our work in previous lives have we made the conditions under which we now live and labor, and are at present creating the conditions of our future lives. Instead of bemoaning the lack of this or that faculty which we covet, we must set to work to acquire it. If one child plays beautifully on a musical instrument, with hardly an effort at learning, while another, despite persistent effort, is a poor player in comparison, it merely shows that one expended the effort in a previous life and is easily regaining a former proficiency, while the efforts of the other have been started only in the present life, and in consequence we see the uphill work. But, if the latter persist, he may, even in the present life, become superior to the former unless the former constantly improves. That we do not remember the effort made in acquiring a faculty by hard work is immaterial, it does not alter the fact that the faculty remains with us.

Genius is the hall-mark of the advanced soul, which by hard work in many previous lives has developed itself in some way beyond the normal achievements of the race. It reveals a glimpse of the degree of attainment which will be the common possession of the coming Race. It cannot be accounted for by heredity, which applies only in part to the dense body and not to qualities of the soul. If genius could be accounted for by heredity, why is there not a long line of mechanical ancestry previous to Thomas Edison, each more capable than his predecessor? Why does not genius propagate itself? Why is not Siegfried the son, greater than Richard Wagner, the father?

In cases where the expression of genius depends upon the possession of specially constructed organs, requiring ages of development, the Ego naturally is reborn in a family the Egos of which have, for generations, labored to build a similar organism. That is why twenty-nine musicians of more or less genius were born in the Bach family during a period of two hundred and fifty years. That genius is an expression of the soul and not of the body is shown by the fact that it did not gradually improve and reach efflorescence in the person of John Sebastian Bach, but that the proficiency which reached its highest expression in him towered high above ancestors and descendants alike.

The body is simply an instrument, the work it yields being dependent upon the Ego which guides it, as the quality of the melody is dependent upon the musician's skill, aided by the timbre of the instrument. A good musician cannot fully express himself on a poor instrument, and even upon the same instrument, all musicians do not and cannot play alike. Because an Ego seeks rebirth as the son of a great musician it does not necessarily follow that he must be a still greater genius, as would be the case if the physical heredity were a fact and genius were not a soul-quality.

Nice quote, Ashvin. I'm delighted to find myself in harmony with your post. I would want to add, and I think you would agree, that we karmically interact not only with our own past lives evolution but with a whole constellation of beings accompanying us. I think we say "yes" (or "no") to the call and then show up and do our work as best as we can, living and learning all along the way.

I would say that the human Ego-I, that which gives us the capacity for genuine novelty of creation and genius, is the Being-constellation's grace given so that we may become more responsible for our own evolution into higher worlds - more spiritually free - starting with our life of thinking, and this has been with us for some time now. As the quote indicated, these qualities are truly the result of our actions, although each incarnation we must work to develop them afresh and manifest their full potential. What we creatively think and do now will then be the seed for the unfoldment of qualities in our next incarnation.

[Lou Gold]

The earth is the garden of evolution, in deed!

[AshvinP]

Nice quote, Ashvin. I'm delighted to find myself in harmony with your post. I would want to add, and I think you would agree, that we karmically interact not only with our own past lives evolution but with a whole constellation of beings accompanying us. I think we say "yes" (or "no") to the call and then show up and do our work as best as we can, living and learning all along the way.

I would say that the human Ego-I, that which gives us the capacity for genuine novelty of creation and genius, is the Being-constellation's grace given so that we may become more responsible for our own evolution into higher worlds - more spiritually free - starting with our life of thinking, and this has been with us for some time now. As the quote indicated, these qualities are truly the result of our actions, although each incarnation we must work to develop them afresh and manifest their full potential. What we creatively think and do now will then be the seed for the unfoldment of qualities in our next incarnation.

I realized this last part isn't quite accurate - it should be, what we creatively think and do now will be the seed for the unfoldment of spiritual forces between death and rebirth, which is just as 'real' and gradual a period of development as between life and death. These forces are not like the sensations and thoughts we have now, i.e. not like the content of those things, but the underlying activity which weaves that content together. In fact, it is the Ideal realm from which all that is 'real' springs. The forces we develop during this period then enfold into a seed which is planted into our next incarnation, which unfolds as physical instruments, soul qualities, and spiritual capacities. Of course, there is a much more exact science to all of this.