One Can Make a Difference (20 page)

John grew up in Yorkshire, England, and began playing the guitar when
just a lad. In the sixties, he moved to the United States and worked with
Miles Davis's electric group, among others. During this time he began exploring
Indian culture, music, and religion and went on to found his own acoustic
group, Shakti, which included many notable Indian musicians. John is a gentle,
charitable, and kind person with a particular love of animals and concern for
war-affected children. He is a fascinating man, but so reserved that I am very
happy to have him open up to readers about what he believes music contributes
to life. In my book, literally and figuratively, if anyone should know, it's John
McLaughlin.

M
usic is a language. A language without words, but nevertheless a language. Music speaks about the human condition, about the relationships we have with the beings in this world and the Universe itself. Most of these subjects are actually unspeakable in words, though the poetic form is the closest form of speech to music, but can be obliquely or sometimes directly indicated in music. I believe that music is a language of the spirit, and as such has definitely encouraged me to pursue my research into the fundamental questions of existence.

I am often asked where my motivation or my desire comes from. This is essentially unanswerable. It's like asking “where does awareness come from?” My particular musical conceptions, however, can be traced to two aspects: my cultural upbringing, and my innate tendencies, neither of which are conscious choices we make at birth, unless you believe in karmic choice. Regarding my innate tendencies I can say nothing. Regarding my cultural background, I'm very fortunate in having elder brothers who influenced me from childhood. Philosophically and musically, I owe a large debt to them both. They encouraged me to question everything, including the ultimate questions about life itself. My mother, an amateur violinist, also encouraged me to broaden my outlook in many ways, not only in music. These were, and still are, determining influences in my life. For example, I recall one winter evening when my mother showed me the planet Mars from our window, and then she gave me a copy of
The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury. I was about twelve or thirteen years old at the time. This was just one small event out of many that shaped my particular character.

Part of that character is my endless hope for humanity. How can you not have hope for us? It is our natural state. We are all already on this path, this journey, and always have been, the same place we set out for when we came down from the trees. The spiritual masters say we already are headed for enlightenment, and always were; we just haven't realized it yet. Yet, even though we have hope, it needs translating into action. We all have responsibility for each other. I believe we are all confronted by similar problems. There are millions of people, however, who don't have the luxury of considering anything other than how they will survive this day. And, of course, many don't.We in the West, on the other hand, are blessed with many more opportunities that give us the possibility of considering personal transformation. Since we all have weaknesses that need transforming, we have a greater chance of accomplishing this. I don't need to list our weaknesses since we all know what they are if we are honest with ourselves: Egotism, hatred, indolence, selfishness, greed, the list is endless.

Not everything can be overcome with music, not all our foibles will disappear if we learn to play the guitar or the tabla, but I will say that learning a musical instrument is very healthy, even for amateurs. You get a quick and humbling experience when learning to play an instrument, and in diving deeply into music, you learn also that you know next to nothing. That's a very important experience, in my opinion! And there are so many lovely pieces of music in our world, from Mozart to Miles Davis; this list is not endless, but long. The wonderful thing about music is that people love music, whatever the style. Music speaks to us directly and reminds us where we all belong, and that we all belong together.

ARTHUR MINTZ

The Soul with the Soles

Arthur Mintz is a retired photographer who lives with his wife, Marjorie, in
Saratoga. I read about Arthur's adventure in a newspaper one morning and was
so captivated I called him immediately! As it turns out, I got him out of bed
(he was on the other coast: Saratoga, California, not Saratoga, New York); the
sun hadn't yet risen on his day. When he'd had his breakfast, I called again to
ask him about the odd cargo he had hauled in gunnysacks to South America.
His story is so simple and lovely that I wanted it to be retold in this book.
It shows that if you look about you, there is always something you can do to
reduce discomfort in the world.

I
t all started with this fellow, a missionary for Medical Ambassadors, who lives down the street from our house and is a friend of ours. He used to go back and forth to Venezuela, taking doctors and supplies to the villages there. My wife and I love to travel, so it crossed my mind that it might be enjoyable to tag along with him, take photos of the wildlife, that sort of thing. We flew to Caracas with him, then took a small plane into the interior. From there, we traveled by dugout canoe for about twelve hours to the little village of Los Gar-citas. The journey along the water was wonderful. There were birds everywhere. At one point, we witnessed flocks of white herons on the embankment, looking for fish because the river had overflowed, taking the fish with it. There must have been over 1,000 of them! I took lots of pictures.

We arrived in Los Garcitas to find a small village of houses with tin roofs and mud floors. The people are poor, mostly banana farmers, and the women use an old foot-pedal Singer sewing machine to make clothes. Almost no one wears shoes, but I didn't think much of it until, sitting at lunch, one of the doctors pointed out a child who was wearing shoes. He said, “See that child? Shoes are very important. Most of the diseases the children get come from bacteria and parasites entering their bodies through the soles of their bare feet.” I thought about that. It was most unusual to see a village child with shoes. Back home in California, not only did the children all have shoes but they didn't wear out the shoes, they grew out of them. And the shoes they discarded still had a lot of use in them.When I returned to the States, I put the word out, using some of my photographs of the barefoot village children. There was instantly a great outpouring of shoes of all kinds and sizes. I went across the street to the coffee company and got seven gunny sacks that the coffee beans came in, and filled them with shoes!

When we returned to Venezuela, we hit a snag. The Customs agents wouldn't let us take the shoes in to their country. I didn't speak the language and couldn't get anywhere with them. I suspected some sort of scam on their part, but there was nothing I could do to make them listen. Luckily, my friend and neighbor speaks fluent Spanish. He can also talk like a Dutch uncle, so he rattled off arguments to the inspectors at full blast, giving them no chance to answer back. Within fifteen minutes the shoes were cleared and we were waved past with a cheery, “Welcome to Venezuela.”

When we reached the village, we couldn't just leave the shoes in a pile or there would have been a mad scramble. Instead, we had the children come to us, one at a time, so we could fit them properly with a pair of shoes and sent them on their way. Their faces lit up like Christmas trees! A few children got sports shoes that lighted when their feet hit the ground. They couldn't believe it. One child's foot was badly diseased, so rotted away, that the bone was showing through the flesh. He chose his shoes and then we carried him to the doctor's office and sat him in a chair. The dead flesh was cut away from his foot, antibiotics were applied, and his foot was bound up. All that time, no matter what was being done to his foot, he wasn't about to let go of those shoes.

I know that some parents took the shoes and sold them to buy food, but no matter, even that meant some difference had been made in their lives. If you ask me what comes to mind about this little act of caring, I will offer you Jesus Christ's words: “Do unto others . . . .”

MOBY

We Are All Made of Stars

The title of this essay comes from a Moby hit that he wrote in memory of the air
attacks on the World Trade Center on his birthday, September 11. While it has
other meanings, this title seems to sum up the potential for all of us to become
something special. Moby, whose real name is Richard Melville Hall—his nickname
comes from the tale of the white whale, written by his great-great-great
uncle—lives his life by doing what moves him. He doesn't follow trends, but
creates music that often goes against them. Because of this, his early years
weren't easy ones, but he never gave up on himself or gave into pressure, and
through this tenacity he helped revolutionize dance music. Since then, he has
changed up his music as his own interests and tastes evolved, again, unconcerned
with the commercial viability of following his vision.

Moby is understated: a diminutive, humble (he calls himself “a simpleton”),
bald, and somewhat quizzical-looking man with big glasses. He dresses
down, lives in a modest apartment, and leads a quiet life. He shows that going
against the grain can often be the key to making a difference.

I
grew up very poor in a very wealthy town (Darien, Connecticut), so my biggest goal back then was to do my best to make sure people did not notice how poor I was. A whole laundry list of people and things influenced me, all the way from when I was a child. For a start, although this isn't the whole list, there's punk rock, Christ, Pete Seeger, John Robbins (John Robbins refused his inheritance of the Baskin Robbins ice cream fortune because he thinks dairy is poison and dairy farming is cruel to animals), good public school teachers, and my mom.

My mother was a Pantheist, in that she liked just about everything. As for my religion, when I was sixteen years old I embraced Taoism because I had a crush on a young woman who was into Taoism, but I didn't really look seriously into religion until I was in my early twenties. I still don't think of myself as a religious person, although I love the teachings of Christ. I find most institutional religion bureaucratic and secular. Any religious belief or teaching that is not based on humility and compassion should be looked at very skeptically and warily.

Two words, labels really, that I try to avoid are “spiritual” and “creative.” I don't know why, but these words make me uncomfortable. Maybe because they try to encapsulate things that are un-encapsulatable. And oftentimes people who describe themselves as “spiritual” and “creative” tend to be kind of smug. So, even though I'm smug once in a while, I avoid those words!

If I could offer any advice to someone about making their business life count for something, I'd give them the deathbed question. Very simply, what do you want to remember when you're on your deathbed? This is a question that should guide all of our actions and choices. Have your own standards. No one on their deathbed wants to say to themselves: “I worked for forty years at a job that I hated because it was expected of me and made my parents happy.”

The world is a complicated place, and to pretend that it's not is to do yourself and the world a great disservice. We can only understand things on a subjective level, so we should never conflate our opinions for objective truth and fact. One of the only things that we can do to make the world a better place is to prevent suffering when we can. So, that's what we should do.

I think it's good advice to avoid compromise as well as settling based on fear and insecurity, especially as regards work and relationships. Don't take yourself too seriously, be nice to people, be loving and kind and forgiving, have as much fun as you can, do work that you love, help those (people and animals) who can't help themselves, eat well, buy Donna Summer's greatest hits.

AIMEE MULLINS

Running on Cheetah Legs

Aimee Mullins, a runway model, actress, and athlete, has turned down more
interviews than she has accepted, so I am very pleased that she agreed to contribute
to this book. Her story is a perfect example of self-reliance and what one
person can achieve when she is determined, even when starting with a literal
“disability” and when other people are telling her it just can't be done.

I was introduced to Aimee by a mutual friend, a filmmaker, who told each
of us that we'd like the other. It was my treat to talk to her and find common
ground in even little things. For instance, we both find it completely silly that
people who think nothing of doing such “unnatural” things as flying, putting
gel in their hair, or eating canned pineapple from a distant land, can find it
somehow upsetting when someone chooses to add sexy high heels to her artificial
legs! Aimee will tell us how she helped revolutionize the amazing world
of prosthetic feet and legs.

S
ome things don't make sense to me, such as why people don't allow themselves a dream; why people just exist rather than choose to actively live life. It's a verb that requires action, “to live.” We can actively impact the direction of our lives; things don't just keep “happening” to us. I just hate apathy! I'm amazed by it, really.

I was born without fibula bones in both my legs, and had to have my legs amputated below the knee. Some people call it a

“congenital birth defect” but the term
defect
makes me cringe.

It's like you're already starting out with a deficit, rather than a potential to be different, to do something different as opposed to what's expected. I didn't see how wearing prosthetics was quite so different from being born with flaming red hair in a crowd of black-haired babies, or being of a different religion from that of every other child in your area. It's just the way it is, and our differences are as important in making us “human” as are our similarities. As far back as I remember, I was being prepared for the worst, told things like, “you'll never be able to ride your bicycle,” “you'll never be able to run,” and “it will take you years to learn to walk.” Luckily, I never believed anyone who made those kinds of sweeping negative pronouncements. I always thought they were completely wrong, and they were. Only you get to put those kinds of limitations on your life if you choose to, and why would we choose to limit rather than to dream—and dream big?