Me son playing the piano. It has been a long day in the shop welding up another one of those insect things and another funeral in the village. This time an 88 year old gentleman who I did many sessions of work for cutting down trees or trimming branches. A few of those were in preparation for his death, in his own words, "Nobody is going to bother with it once I am gone, so we had better get it done before I get in my grave". Of course he said it in Japanese being that is the local lingo. He used to wear a hat a bit like the one our kid has on when he went up to tend the fields each day. Very much a sense of the old chap pulling the bedclothes up around the chin before slipping under the moss. The last time I met him taking a little stroll he said he felt ready for bed and I think we even shook hands on the deal.
Anyway I am fresh from the incense burning evening session the day before the funeral with a slight intake of beer, so slightly freer of vocabulary than normal.
The piano playing is pretty much an evening ritual for the young un and me. I am a hopeless case as my tadpole reading days may never come. Yer man there still has a chance at that, so I encourage him to try. Whichever way, as long as it continues to be fun and a means of expression that is moving forwards even slowly it is one of our deepest human rights even beyond speech to have a whack at the music with vim and vigour and ignore the fact that we have it driven into us as kids that it is not fun and definitely not our right, it is something you have to train at and study. I guess the study is good, but I believe you get better at what you enjoy doing, there is a natural selection at work in all of us that means we follow a path of least resistance, the slightest inclination toward something will gradually magnify as we pass through life. When left to our own devices I think that is a good thing and our own individual talents come forward, but when it comes to the sarcasm of every music teacher I ever met I draw the line and call it unnatural selection.