My unfortunate piano career and the 2 key questions to always ask
Why we need both "what is?" and "what is good?"
I started playing piano when I was about twelve years old, and my teacher was a stern older woman named Mrs. Bradley. (That she shared the same surname as my own is, I guess, the reason I remember it.) The impetus behind the lessons was the piano my parents bought when we moved; we finally had a basement space that could house one.
I was not, it must be said, a particularly musical child or stellar on the piano. Though I learned to read music and played the requisite pieces, my career was short-lived. I cried on the bench, you see, during lessons with the exacting Mrs. Bradley. I was sufficiently old that crying was neither anticipated nor at all pleasant for either my instructor or myself, but cry I often did. I carried on, though, a very average student but one who knew her chords and could carry off a rendition of basic classical pieces and such hits as “Let It Be” and “Earth Angel.”
That I took piano at all, however, is a question worth exploring. And I tell you the story to get behind that topic. Why did my parents want me to play piano? What leads a person to opt into an activity for one’s child… or oneself? After all, we choose activities of one kind or another every day.
Turns out there’s a simple framework that helps, a process that enables us to make a good decision - and it comes to us through natural law. Natural law is the age-old set of universal truths, common to all humans, that’s discovered through reason. It provides the tools we need to decide things with wisdom.
We learn from natural law that there are two questions that allow us to properly see the world and ourselves… and then decide what is reasonable to do. The first is: what is? The second is: what is good? The process is simple, profound, and necessary.
These two questions “work” for any decision, large or small. You first determine the facts about a situation. Then you lay them alongside the six basic goods (which are always reasons to act – more here and here). Finally you decide what to do.
I’m hungry and there’s an apple on the counter (this is WHAT IS). Eating is necessary for the basic good of life (this is WHAT IS GOOD). I eat the apple.
Or: I don’t understand my math and I failed the test (this is WHAT IS). Learning math is necessary for the basic good of knowledge (this is WHAT IS GOOD). I go for extra help.
You get the concept.
In my childhood piano experience, we can apply the same two questions.
First, What is? We have a piano. I have free time. A piano teacher is available. Second, What is good? Beauty is good (and playing piano, as every instrument, is a pursuit of beauty).
I took the lessons.
What we need to live well as a human is to take the answers to both questions into account, together. Doing this for each situation we face leads to reasonable actions… and the accumulation of those is a flourishing life.
This is why I started piano. As time went on, we revisited the question of “what is?” pertaining to my piano career… and new answers to the question emerged. I had a limited aptitude for music. I found the lessons stressful. My rapport with my teacher wasn’t fantastic. I was growing in diligence (as one always grows in virtue when pursuing a basic good).
Taking these into consideration, we eventually we opted for me to stop taking piano in favor of other endeavors. This was also a reasonable decision – so long as the other endeavors were also actions taken in pursuit of basic goods. One need not take piano forever. After all, we are limited and there is no ideal state; no one person can pursue all the goods in all the ways at all times.
It may amuse you to learn that the end came a few years in, when I lost my place in the middle of a recital and stormed off the stage, mid-piece, in tears – and in front of my peers, no less. The height of adolescent shame. Epic. It certainly helped finalize my choice to pursue other things!
Bottom line… Let’s flourish by taking the time to ask the two questions we need to answer to act well. Let’s make sure we’ve done the work to observe what truly is, in any situation we face… and lay our answers alongside the basic goods to know we’re acting for a reason that is, empirically, good. Our lives – short-term and long-term – and our legacy will thank us.