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One person can make a difference. |
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Posted by Max Hsu
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12:23 AM Wednesday, 28 November 2007 |
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It was disability awareness day at a Red Sox home game in Boston's Fenway Park. A young man with autism sang the national anthem. Partway through he develops a case of nervous giggles. At first there's a lot of good natured laughter and it's not clear if he's going to be able to finish the song but when he falters, the entire crowd at Fenway joins in and finishes the song with him. It's incredibly moving and one comment I saw said something like this:
"I think people in general are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling, but this almost restored my faith in human nature".
I wasn't there, but I'm going to guess what happened. When the singer began to giggle, while everyone was laughing, one person realized the young man wasn't going to get through the song and to help him, he began to sing along, loud enough that people could hear him. As people realized someone else was singing, they caught on; "oh yah, we can help this guy!" and suddenly an entire stadium of people does the right thing because someone showed them the way.
One person can make a difference.
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Mommy, where do songs come from? |
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Posted by Max Hsu
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12:28 PM Tuesday, 20 November 2007 |
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If I haven't written in awhile, even a short while, I forget where songs come from, I forget how to write. I wonder where the songs I've written came from and I feel empty with no songs and no idea where to start. I forget that the last time I wrote a song I had no idea where to start either and that I certainly didn't start with a fully formed song. I started with a big piece of nothing and I sat down despite my fear and my laziness and I just started pushing play-doh around. I feel like I have no music in me and it will be another wasted session of chipping away at rock to find only rock chips. I sit down grumpy and distracted and halfhearted because I fear that I have no talent and that I will be caged in this room for more frustrating failure, letting people down.
But if I force myself to sit down and write, eventually bits and pieces of things that don't suck float to the top and I play with them and other people play with them and sometimes, quite by surprise a song snaps into focus and I realize that I like it because I am just playing it again and again and again.
It's hard and disappointing, filled with false starts, dead ends and orphan songs left by the wayside, but it's all worth it anyways.
The songs show up, when I show up.
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Let no one slip under unnoticed |
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Posted by Max Hsu
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04:04 AM Friday, 20 April 2007 |
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We can't change what happened, but maybe we can change what will happen. Thoughts on the tragedy at Virginia Tech. |
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