Laying a Foundation

The hardest thing about tuning a piano is in the setting of the "temperament," or, as many in the profession call the operation—"Laying the Bearing." In layman's language, setting the temperament is nothing more than tuning 13 notes from which the entire piano is tuned. For our purposes the temperament is a foundation or base upon which all other must rest. In this respect, it is my hope that this essay will lay the foundation for future development.

There are many kinds of foundations. There are foundations that never move, or at least that is their purpose, such as those upon which the great pyramids rest, but there are also foundations that are built to move, where being rigid would defeat the purpose. My son-in-law builds homes in the heart of earthquake country. He had just finished one when a major earthquake struck California. The home was located at the point where the shock was greatest, a few miles out of Santa Cruz, yet the house came through the whole event with hardly a scratch. The reason—the house was built upon a movable foundation. This is how I believe our minds should work. We should have a mental foundation that should be able to either absorb the shock or move with it, while it still maintains its bearing.

I consciously took on the battle of cleaning my own mental house more than thirty years ago. I didn't like what I had become, or was becoming. I was trapped. I needed a new mental equation. I had built my foundation on a fixed set of conditions. My beliefs were not strong enough to withstand the pressures of change and dislocation. I had built my mental foundation out of the reservoir of human knowledge and information. I believed in the power of human intelligence, and in that day and age, it looked as if there were no limits to man's ability.

In today's world we tend to forget the simple things that support our mental and emotional foundation. We are on a mad dash to find the bigger and better solution to our problems. We like to find the easiest road possible. We don't want to think in terms of personal responsibility, nor do we want to make things hard on ourselves. Therefore, we look outward, rather than inward for answers.

We are not capable of living without a point of reference. Everything about us demands a point of reference, something to look to, something to hope for, something that gives us meaning and purpose in life. We are not capable of living in a sea of chaos. Our cities are driving us mad, because they are losing their function. And the reason cities are losing their function is because the individual can no longer maintain his point of reference. Stated another way—the city is now his master, and he is the slave. To a larger degree, this is also what has happened with man's relationship to the machine. In the past, the machines may have worked for us, but in today's world we are finding more and more people working for the machine. I personally know of many young people who are struggling to make ends meet because the better part of their income goes toward maintaining and owning a car. Yet, they have to have the car in order to have a job or work. This is certainly a far departure from Henry Ford's dream for making the automobile in the first place; if I remember correctly, his purpose was to allow people in the city to drive out into the country. Today, the automobile has not only destroyed the city, it has destroyed the country.

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My Earliest Days

Recollections of WWII

Music Touches Me for the First Time

The Grand Island Experience

Individual and Collective Error

Pain - Notes