The full music experience...

I listen to music, a lot of it and most genres. I talk to people about music, and most are into one, or just a few, genres because of the beat or lifestyle connected to it.

I am not very hung up in genre, I am interested in what artists have to say. Or perhaps express is a better way of putting it. That is where I focus.

It's the artists that give me good, present texts I continue to listen to, those who give me challenges in

addition to the music; Regardless of instruments, beat or image.

I like the songs I feel that I totally understand. Music which express a mood, feeling or stand, in addition to contents. I so admire the skills some musicians have to work their instrument, to tear sounds from their instrument, or voice, which express emotions and create harmony in me. At times I just turn the volume up high, lie on the floor and let the music wash over me. Feeling as one with the elements.

I admit it: I'm a word freak. I do not always notice the sound cheating or if the bass sounds a bit sour. Maybe because I do not listen hard enough, and instead think: I know these songs, I know the lyrics, I know the pauses, the phrasing, the transitions, the voices... But I love to hear them again and again directly mediated through the intense communication between me and the music. I anticipate the text, a line that I might hear something new into, that gives me a new way of perceiving the song.

And often, when I hear the songs I listen to them, over and over again: the first, the second, and third time...

And listening to the music often gives me just as much, if not more, as if I read literature. You know; proper literature, reputabel literature, written by authors highly regarded for their wordcraft.

Music provides the chance to experience a contemporary community that's there without having to talk about it. In many ways both music (with its sound and lyrics) and literature activates some of the same receiver unit in me. I open myself to someone else's thoughts and engage in dialogue with another's view of the world.

I try to understand and harmonize with this view of my world, and to make it something I can relate to and understand.

When I read, I listen to someone’s voice, his view upon life, just like I do when I listen to, or read, lyrics

Sometimes I communicate with a particular song, almost arguing with it, and then I find I relate indifferent to it. It depends on how I set my mind there and then. I don’t always feel the light attitude towards life. It is not always the right thing for me to live in the moment... but some times it is.

Music is all about movement. It's all about rhythm, the communication that may change between performances in different settings.

If you know the songs well, you notice the differences in performances.

Music has two dimensions to create their expression, whereas text has one. Musical highlights invites text into dialogue with it; it can verify it, or it can disprove it.

Both the music and the text reaches the listener and goes together in a whole. The lyrics with its poetry or prose creates meanings and engage in dialogue with the reader or listener. The musical setting limitsthe lyrics. The music can be changed and varied, while the text remains unchanged.

A song engage me differently if it is performed by a band with full power, or just vocals and guitar or saxophone. Rock beat gives me a completely different experience than when I hear it acoustically. Same text, different perception; Same contents. The whole package; setting, beat, lyrics, mood... gives me a different inner experience of the contents every time I listen. And to me, that is the gift music gives me: The possebility to admire how someone out there express my own existence so much better than I can ever possibly do myself.

To lead and be led...

Being a leader must be very difficult: You have to make decisions and have the last say in matters which concern others. Not only people, but also the place, environment and standard they find themselves in.

At the most basic level, a leader is someone who leads other. A leader is a person who has a vision, a drive and a commitment to achieve that vision, and the skills to make it happen. You make things change (hopefully to the better) and function, and you make it all happen by loyal subordinates, who have the qualifications needed to get the job done.

If one, or more, of those postulations are lacking, you really have a hard time trying to be a leader. Simply because you are not... at least not the leader you ought to be.

If I were to call a meeting, and the people to attend agreed to both time and place, I would expect them to be present and prepared. Regardless if it is a parents committee meeting at my children’s school, the team at work or some charity work group.

Efficient meetings have an agenda, and the agenda has significanse to the job instruction. In other words: to participate in those meetings is part of what you are paid, or signed up, to do.

Ever participated in one of those meetings with no agenda? To me they come across as pretty meaningless because nobody really knows what they are supposed to have opinions on, or what to check on beforehand.

I get so frustrated when grown ups expect me to waste time on meetings which often end up as a pointless exchange bazaar of recipes. I think there is a time and place for everything. If I am effective at work; well, more time to play.

Further on I would be really upset if someone brought their underaged child to the meeting, and when commented upon I got the answer that they all totally accepted the child’s presense. I may be totally wrong about this, but I think there are issues which are adult problems and worries... just like I believe there are activities that apply to adults only.

In addition I would be really upset if the participants just popped by for a few minutes, especially if that participant was the head of department...

To be a leader means you would just tell the rude, totally unengaged head of department to sit down and participate.

Tell the parent of that child to find somewhere else for the child to be during the meeting.

If the emloyee takes his liberty to consider your meeting unimportant or insignificant there should be some kind of consequence. There must be fait in the understanding that the leader knows, and act, according to the workplace's and the emplyees'  best interest. We are not very good at anarchy, you see.

Do what a leader is supposed to do: take charge! And demand they act according to the responsibilities they have in their job. (Reading this I do understand why I could easilly come across as a rigid nerd..)

Just like the leader. The leader is responsible for every call he or she makes (at least that is what we expect he or she does...  That being said; I notice that lately being the best at blaming others, has been the goal.)

Even more so;The scary part is that he or she is even more responsible for the desisions not being made.

Every day I teach classes of teenage boys. They do not really want to be there, they just want to get done with it. Get their education and get on with their lives. I consider myself a leader. I have learned through trials and failures, and I have been trained in classroom management. I know what it takes to be a leader.

When people hear I am a teacher, I usually get the “Oh, that must be hard. How do you cope? Do you get their attention?”

Yes, I do! Because my students know what I expect of them. They know I prepare classes where they are to learn things which are, and will be, important for them. I do not just muck about. Time is precious and we do not waste time just to make time pass.

The difference between being a friend and being friendly is huge!

I would expect grown ups, with important jobs, to have the same respect and attitude to their work as my students do to theirs. When they come to us, they may not be quite there, but it does not take long untill they are on board.

In private I am no control freak. I probably am one of the most disorganized and distracted person I know of.

But when at work, I am given a responsibility which I am paid to act out. My time and my person belongs to my employer. If I do not do my job it is like buying carrots in a store and go home with a bag full of chocolates. Very nice (and everybody who knows me can relate to this analogy, cause I just adore chocolate!), but not all that suitable for dinner... except for dessert, perhaps.

The thing is; if we only eat desserts, all the time, we end up being unhealthy and unfit for fight.

I wonder if many leaders, with great cvs, let their subordinates run their own comfortable show, eating desserts.