Spent the day writing for Letters 2. An incredibly rich day. A friend loaned me a book last week and he read this paragraph aloud to me as he did so, and it’s very deeply informed my writing today.

“I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.”

- Frederick Buechner (from the book Telling Secrets)

There’s a quote I’ve been trying to find for a week now. I can’t remember where I read it, or who said it, but I’d like to get it right and give them credit.

There was so much hype for the new Batman movie and I was all caught up in it, but walking out of the theatre, my thoughts turned to this quote. (If you are familiar with it and can direct me towards the original, I’d appreciate it.)

“There comes a point when one must say of all the things of man, of Shakespeare, even of Mozart, is this all?”

Is this all? Hundreds of millions of dollars, IMAX film, great writing and visuals, some of the best actors alive, and even the haunting power of a final performance, and you know what? It was just a movie. We gave our money, ate our popcorn, and headed back out to the parking lot to drive home and see who was on Conan.

Not that it wasn’t a good movie. It was. But it revealed to me, (again and again, will I never learn?) that I put my hope in the wrong things.

Was I really putting my hope in some movie, you might say? Hoping it would do do what? I don’t know, honestly, but I do know I was disappointed that I wasn’t different after watching it, that it hadn’t changed me. Which means, at some absurd and obviously flawed level, I was putting my hope in a movie.

And this is something we all do. Whether it’s Batman or the new Coldplay or U2. We can put our hope there. Or we can put it in our pastor’s sermons or our small group’s honesty. We can put our hope there. We can put it in the girl that got away or in making love with the one we married. We can put our hope there.

We have some bit of hope that it will change us, make us better. Or we’re trapped in some cycle of secrets and habits we can’t escape. Maybe this thing will curb our appetite for the sins that we feel define our secret selves, or at least it will let us not think about it for a while. Or at least it will make us feel. We’ve been so numbed for so long, for some unknown and hated reason, that we can’t feel anymore, and maybe this thing will connect us, revive us.

And at some point we’ll have to look at this thing, this movie or relationship or feeling, however truly good it may be, and say: “is this all?”

In a word: “Oops.”

There’s a definite connection between how much my children sleep and how much I blog. Obviously, they have not slept much this past week. I’ll leave it at that.

Tonight was a bit of nerd heaven. First, I was finally able to reserve tickets for “The Dark Knight” on IMAX. Tuesday night. Bring it.

Then I got home to find my two magazines had both arrived. Wired and Tape Op, which is not only my favorite recording magazine but the ONLY one that’s free. Awesome.

Tonight my wife had to run some errands, so I updated my operating system (this is my second attempt at Leopard) while watching an animated Batman prequel thing called “Gotham Knight”. It tells some of the story between “Batman Begins” and this new one. It had some cool moments and it further got me in the mood for tomorrow. Many thanks to Rae who let me know about this movie via twittter.

In Letters news: I’m halfway through the recording of my third tune, a track called “Shepherd”. I haven’t had as much uninterrupted time to work on this project as I did last time, and it’s been a bit disappointing to get an idea and then have to wait a couple days to do anything about it. But I’m about halfway through already, so I shouldn’t complain. It always look different in the middle. Anyway, tomorrow morning I’ll finish that song up and then run some amps over to Steve and Derri to borrow for a couple weeks.

Well, that’s about it for me. Hopefully sleep will be more gracious tonight. See you tomorrow.

The consensus was more video, so here’s one to start off the day…

I’ve been reading a book by Salman Rushdie called “The Moor’s Last Sigh”. It’s great. I’ve been a fan of Rushdie’s for a while, and my appreciation for him has grown since my involvement with India and the Dalit movement.

Rushdie is a real genius. He plays with language like a magician with a deck of cards. He makes it look easy, and he seemingly flippantly does impossible things. It’s a ride, and very fun to get into.

Last night I read a tiny paragraph that was so simple and profound, carefree and meticulous at the same time. Genius. I had to stop and read it a few times, just laughing out loud at just how good he is at this.

It’s inspiring to see somebody so good do something great. It makes me think of the last few Super Bowl halftimes. (I can’t really tell you about anything that happened in the actual game, per se.)

A few years ago the Rolling Stones played. They’re one of the originals, the founding fathers of rock and roll. They’re good, but they’re more “important” for the role they played. They have natural talent, but their set was boring and uninspired. It wasn’t fun to watch, and I doubt it made any new fans. After 45 years of being a band, you’d think they would learn what people might like to watch. If you have a 16 minute set, don’t jam out on two of your average songs the whole time. Think about what you can do best, and give it to us.

This past year Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played. They were amazing. They had obviously given it a lot of thought. They cut all the intros to half their usual length. They played four songs, but only the second verse of one of them. They got to the choruses of their biggest hits and they hung out there for just long enough. They knew what folks wanted and they gave it to them. They had rehearsed, that was obvious, and they were not just talented but skilled at what they do. And it set them apart. Everybody I talked to loved their set. Just try getting tickets to a Tom Petty show this year. Just try. You can’t. They inspired us and now everybody wants more.

Every one of us is talented at something. And we’re all probably somewhat skilled at something. But the magic happens when you learn to use your talent with skill, and then you skillfully use your talent with wisdom.

It’s inspiring, and just plain fun, to see somebody do this, and they always make it look easy. But it’s not.