It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine.
It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice.
Go to the young conductors who are not making it, and you will hear how we shouldn't push ourselves or sell ourselves, how they don't have the right connections and the right opportunities. Well, you can be sure they've had the opportunities.
Once you have somebody that is telling you, 'We are interpreting God for you,' it seems like you either agree or you don't. You either say, like Martin Luther, 'I'm going to have a direct relationship with the word of God,' or I'm going to go through a conduit of God on Earth,' which would be the Pope.
Most days I am in public. If I go to the store, with social media, I'm in public. It might as well be a press conference.
I have a private plane. But I fly commercial when I go to environmental conferences.
You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.'
When we really start searching for the truth in stories, we can find it everywhere, not just in sincere confessions but in the deliberate lies and imagined possibilities, the magic and fantasy, and all the other unreal elements that go into the concoction of identity.
There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.
As a three shooter, seeing one go through the net, that's all you need to just be shooting it confidently again.
My recollection is - and I'd have to confirm this - but I don't recall paying any money to go to law school.
The older I get, the more the lying, the losing touch with your true thoughts and feelings, and the compromises required to fit in seem not worth the effort. It's my one go on Earth; why spend any more of it conforming to other people's rules and ideals?
There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement that if all our skins turned lavender overnight, the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity, and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice forevermore.
I know a lot of Cup Series champions, and they each have a very different personality. They all go about handling adversity, their challenges, and even confrontation a little differently.
In the real world, people go against my beliefs all the time, and I don't make it my place to - like, I'm not super confrontational.
I do think that tonal element of Trump's is attractive, but I don't know if I would go so far as to say the confrontational element of his rhetoric is necessarily attractive.
As an FBI agent, you donβt want to go in there gangbusters and confrontational. You are going to get a lot more information if you put the subject at ease and allow them to talk.
No matter where you go and what you do in America, you turn the tele on and you're confronted with violence.
My mom and my aunties are really devout Christians. My mom married a Muslim when I was 12, so I got teachings from both sides and then other sides because I wanted to find out which way to go. So not only Christianity and Islam, but Confucianism, Shintoism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Judaism. I tried to read everything.
I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you're trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you're giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you're trying to do?
