I'm starting "The Audacity of Hope", a book written by the US President when he was still a senator. And I found this writing, at the opening section of the book.
"By all appearances, my choice of careers seemed to have worked out. ... But the years had also taken their toll. ... I began to harbor doubts about the path I had chosen; I began feeling the way I imagine an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream, after years of waiting tables between auditions or scratching out hits in the minor leagues, he realizes that he's gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and he now faces the choice of accepting this fact like a grown-up and moving on to more sensible pursuits, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic."
I don't want to be bitter, quarrelsome and pathetic, especially not when I'm 40 and my dream of having a classical music community with quality I can be proud of is still not happening. So it's good to stop now. Maybe it's time to do other things that I love. Maybe I should read more Dickens, refresh my German and French, listen to my old CDs as well as the new ones, the ones I stacked without listen to because I simply didn't have time to open the package, and back to practising piano, my core training. But it's really good to know that even people like Obama stop for a while. It's comforting to know that I'm entitled to this break. And here's why.
"At some point, I arrived at acceptance--of my limits, and in a way, my mortality. ... And it was this acceptance, I think, that allowed me to come up with the thoroughly cockeyed idea of running for the United States Senate."
Einstein said, no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. After four years, all I did was what Einstein called insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result. I must step away from all these problems which occurs in the classical music world in my country, if possible to a higher place, so I can see them from different perspective, and hopefully, with a higher level of consciousness. Then I'll be able to find a solution. At this moment, I'm too close to everything, too attached to the cause and the people so I can't break my own recurring habits of thought. The problem I'm facing is also complex, and it needs time. The solution will not happen at once. But when I finally does find a simple one, it means God is answering. And I know God will.
