Music

I learned oud, or lute, for 3 years. Even though I gave up in exasperation and despair of ever being this good, I find that I miss it now. I wish I could create beauty, joy, or goodness by virtue of a talent, or knowledge, or skill. Would that I could flood the world with the reservoir that is my soul. But I have been given no tap, and that which I strive to fashion for the moment in every moment is ever rusted, blocked, a crude and pathetic attempt at elevation above the mundane, at becoming more than a consumer of the efforts of other beings and things.