A post by Seth Godin led me to the transcript of a discussion on April 9 with Washington Post writer Gene Weingarten. The topic was an experiment Gene conducted to discover if violinist Josh Bell (incognito in a baseball cap) and his Stradivarius playing in a transit station could stop busy commuters rushing to work. As you might expect, almost nobody stopped, and the discussion touched on how sad it was that people missed a moment of beauty in the rat race to get to work.
I like to think I would have stopped. Life is short, and we need to seize those moments of beauty when we can. When walking my dog on a frigid but clear night, I look at the stars and appreciate how many more chances I have to see them, even though this has resulted in having to wear a ski jacket for half the year. When my kids were small and would come in with grass stains on their knees, I would think of my favourite quote from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons by Bill Watterson: “I say if your knees aren’t green at the end of the day, you oughta seriously re-examine your life.”
How do you make sure your knees are green at the end of the day?
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Sometimes my knees are literally green from gardening, or these days, brown, from transplanting bushes which I’ve been doing over the weekend. I like to take an hour after lunch each day to putter around outside my house or take a long walk through my parents’ neighbouring 16-acre property. That’s one of the big benefits of living and working in the country.
That’s also one of the big benefits of working solo. Aren’t you looking forward to a little heat to encourage more budding out in the garden?
I always stop to listen to good classical buskers. It is good to hear civilised music in the streets rather than trash.
Quality is the one thing missing in life today.