#com

Commitment is a word invented in our abstract modernity to signify the absence of any real motives in the soul for moral dedication. ↗

— Allan Bloom

#morality #motivational

We all look for strategies or techniques that will free us from the pain of relationships and the hard work good relationships demand. We hope that better planning, more effective communication, clear role definitions, conflict resolution strategies, gender studies, and personality typing--to name just a few -- will make the difference. There may be value in these things, but if they were all we needed, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection would be unnecessary or, at best, redundant. Skills and techniques appeal to us because they promise that relational problems can be fixed by tweaking our behavior without altering the bent of our hearts. But the Bible says something very different. It says that Christ is the only real hope for relationships because only he can dig deep enough to address the core motivations and desires of our hearts. Most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship. ↗

— Paul David Tripp

#communication

Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life. ↗

— Piero Gheddo

#attention #christianity #compassion #empathy #giving

For the record, folks; I never took a shit on stage and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973. ↗

— Frank Zappa

#music #music

Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music. ↗

— Marcel Marceau

#combine #done #full #music #silence

Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world...if you do so, you are insulting yourself. ↗

— Bill Gates

#insult #unique #insult

It’s great that a song now costs exactly the same as a pack of gum and lasts exactly the same amount of time before it loses its flavour and you have to spend another buck. ↗

— Jonathan Franzen

#mp #music

The world is simple in a complex way." -Zack Merrick ↗

— Zack Merrick

#music #philosophy #simple #world #music

Two people, two hands, and two songs, in this case "Big Shot" and "Bette Davis Eyes." The lyrics of the two songs provided no commentary, honest or ironic, on the proceedings. They were merely there and always underfoot, the insistent gray muck that was pop culture. It stuck to our shoes and we tracked it through our lives. ↗

— Colson Whitehead

#life #music #pop-culture #songs #life

As music becomes less of a thing--a cylinder, a cassette, a disc--and more ephemeral, perhaps we will begin to assign an increasing value to live performances again. ↗

— David Byrne

#social-commentary #music