Month: July 2009

Guitars, Drums, and Trusting Yourself

“Forever trust in who we are, and nothing else matters…”

In the world of inspirational and positive affirmation quotations, we are used to the words of Wayne Dyer, Anthony Robbins, Norman Vincent Peale, and others. One of my favorite inspirational quotes, however, comes from the duo of James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich.  Hetfield and Ulrich are better known by their day jobs as lead vocalist and drummer, respectively, of the band Metallica. The above quote is from their 1991 song “Nothing Else Matters”.

Trust is a funny thing.  As kids we learn to trust our parents.  We learn to trust our siblings. We learn to trust our friends.  But at what point do we learn to trust ourselves?

The road to trusting ourselves is sometimes treacherous. Especially if a troll named Insecurity jumps out from behind a tree.  Insecurity is the arch enemy of self trust.

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Welcome to the Year 1439

It was going along just great until Johannes Gutenberg changed everything.

It was 1439, the year that Gutenberg is widely believed to have invented something called moveable type. Moveable type was the foundation of the modern printing press. Gutenberg crafted individual letters and then could assemble words, then sentences, then paragraphs, then pages of information that for the first time could be mass produced. Prior to Gutenberg, calligraphers ruled the world of printed information. The only problem with calligraphers was their work could not be mass produced, thus greatly limited the distribution of information. The printing press changed the world.

Being a calligrapher in the age of the printing press was not a good thing. Suddenly your skill set is no longer as useful to the world as it used to be. I’m sure calligraphers of the day fought this technological change; after all it was a direct threat to their trade and their ability to provide for their families. Fight as they may, technology won, and changed the world.  

Technology always wins.

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