Calling on all you Highland members in pursuit of that elusive quality called excellence in your chosen field – whether it be music, painting, architecture, writing, sculpture, film making, photography, visual or performance art – to ask whether you identify with a trait cited in the focus article (click: Divine Discontent):

The most fulfilled people I know tend to have two traits. They’re insatiably curious – about new ideas, experiences, information and people. And they seem to exist in a state of perpetual, self-inflicted unhappiness.

Please share your perspective on whether your own unambiguous pursuit of excellence means that you fling yourself into those pursuits destined to make you unhappy – gloriously and sublimely unhappy. Steady as you go, dogged determination is the key. Discipline, aspiration, and revision. Never give in, never, never, never, never, never. It’s what makes life meaningful.

Catch you on a good day and feel the vibe. Catch you on a bad day and feel the vibe. Either way, what comes to mind is that you fully inhabit your life, the antidote to what we discussed in MM 10/21/24 Killing Time. Divine discontent, we learn, is about aspiring to greatness, to be unembarrassed and indomitable in your ambitions.

We salute all you perhaps tortured artists for tapping into some transcendent fulfillness and elevating the standards in a world made better for the rest of us. I’ll have what you’re having. How exalted that state must be, so timelessly and otherworldly focused. Just don’t cut off your ear and send it to your lover.

Thank you all for maintaining such lofty standards in this kinetic world where our present reality sometimes seems squalid and diminished, an ignominious comedown from better days when household appliances lasted, workers worked, wars were just, and manners were exquisite.

On the other hand, Musk did just manage to snatch a returning booster rocket from outer space, so there’s always that.