Martin Cremer

💡❕Eureka! This book is a beautiful and enduring gem of awakening that is altering my perception and relationship with time. I used to associate the word "memory" with the "past." I think we all do. It's a visceral feeling that happens before mind has the ability to intervene. I now spend time crafting new experiences, from the mundane to the grand, in an effort to craft the memory before the event takes place. I only recently had a broadly negative bias of my "past" and hence memories. The bias came from thinking of memory as something past, gone and never to return. The shift in thinking completely alters one's relationship with time. We are each mortal and feel a sense of time slipping like sand through our fingers, vanishing through the hourglass into a void. The author's thesis is profound (it's so subtle or pervasive that it's elusive). The invitation is to prioritize and proactively create a diversity of novel "happy" experiences. This is an empowering message. The more active we become in the way we frame and generate new experiences the greater our sense of liberty and autonomy. It's freeing to realize that being "happy" is about building and enjoying dynamic experiences. We are the shapes that shape us, we shape the shaped us. I wonder if fellow readers came away with a similar interpretation? This is a lovely work, built with gratitude and humility, carrying with it the light of generous spirit. 🙏

In my opinion the best work Dylan has ever produced. Only a man who has reached the "top of the hill" could sing these songs that are Biblical in their depth and scope. This is Dylan telling us who he is and he is far more of a mythical character in this regard than any living artist. This is a man living with awareness that he's "the last of the best, you can bury the rest." The Master is in somehow transcending his best work. His powers of expression are superhuman. His bravery, vulnerability and sheer endurance can be heard in every line. He's "been through hell, what good did it do?" Well, ensured his songs will shape generations into the deep future in the event we survive the century.

Bob Dylan moves his lyrics into new unprecedented territory with a mix of traditionally influenced arrangements and conversely instrumentals that are such dense chimeral constructs they defy category. This is an album Herculean in scope and the most apt album of the times. It set the stage for Rough and Rowdy Ways which is the most Dylaneque in style and Shakespearean in scope. As good as music gets.