Instead of imposing your will on every situation...focus on including everyone else, and just that little adjustment of attitude gives you the space to understand where and who you are.
Interpretation
The quote encourages us to be more inclusive and collaborative rather than just imposing our own desires, leading to greater self-awareness.
Wynton Marsalis highlights the importance of adopting an inclusive approach in our interactions with others. Instead of merely forcing our own agendas, we should consider the perspectives of those around us. This shift in attitude not only fosters a sense of community but also allows us to gain deeper insights into our own identity and place in the world. By prioritizing understanding and connection, we create an environment conducive to personal growth and collective harmony.
In practice
In a team meeting discussing project goals.
Swing is extreme coordination. It's a maintaining balance, equilibrium. It's about executing very difficult rhythms with a panache and a feeling in the context of very strict time. So, everything about the swing is about some guideline and some grid and the elegant way that you negotiate your way through that grid.
Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that.
Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.
The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel.
In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.
My daddy thought - no, he expected - that my brothers and I and our generation would make the world a better place. He was correct in his belief because he had lived in an America of continual social progress, depression followed by prosperity, segregation by integration, and so on.
Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do.
Rage is a powerful energy that with diligent practice can be transformed into fierce compassion. However much we disagree with our enemies, our task is to identify with them. They too feel justified in their point of view.
Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.
Genius abhors consensus because when consensus is reached, thinking stops. Stop nodding your head.
You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.
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