I’ve long been shackled to politics – here in Chicago at least we had a primary with some interesting local races that actually centered on issues versus personalities.  The elections have been important and offered a refreshing reminder of what politics should be all about.  But the national dialogue is anything but.

One side effect of playing the violin again these past two plus years is that I’ve allowed music to dominate part of my brain; it’s been wonderful to have a new passion helping me to relax my relatively obsessive political mind.  This shift has been accidental, an unintended consequence of ceding a big chunk of my days off to playing music.

Prior to beginning to play the violin, I would actually sit and stew over politics, uninterrupted, for a whole day.  I would abandon any regulation of my brain, letting my thoughts spin into political places dark and dismal, angry and unhelpful.  Of course politics is not about solutions, it’s about power and money.  I think playing music has really activated the parts of my brain that hunger for productive pragmatism.

Nowadays I get totally fed up reading the same bit of political analysis in a different package, and I decide it’s time to play – I just now read my third article on dismal convention scenarios; suddenly, my political passion has evaporated.  I decided to write this blog post, and then play.  So I’m writing and I’m creating music versus stewing away about things over which I have no control – productive passions.   They certainly win over politics, which is a great way to waste a day.

Passions should be productive.  Let’s take this train to the terminal:  am I saying that Bieber, Beyonce, and Adele do more for humanity than Harry Reid and Paul Ryan?  I think that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan