Friday

don't notice

Tolstoy’s War and Peace contains a fine Zen parable. Briefly: Napoleon invades Russia, is beaten back and retreats across the frozen countryside. Our hero, Pierre, a Russian nobleman, lands in a French POW camp where he hears a peasant singing to himself and is struck by the simple beauty of his song. The song is natural like that of a bird in the forest. A bird doesn’t change its song because someone is listening. It’s too busy singing to notice it has an audience. Tobias Hurwitz, June issue of Guitar Player

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