of all the musical geniuses that ever lived, many consider Beethoven to be THE ONE.

it came easy to Mozart. are you a genius if it was literally a gift from God?

Hell No.

you’re a genius if Despite the obstacles in your life or your surroundings you are able to overcome

and still create miracles.

above we see an image of Beethoven writing music. things are scratched out, corrections are being made, editing.

bro’s working. crafting. weeding out the riff raff. changing direction midstream.

heres Wolfgang Amadeus

everythings nice, tight, polite. very few notes. maybe a reminder to the conductor or musician, but basically it came from God’s heart and through Mozart’s fingers.

while I love both of their music, to me, Beethoven should be admired more because he shows that a strong work ethic and intention and commitment can create art that will last forever.

you might like Mozart more, fine. But most of us agree they were both giants in their field and life is so much better with them than without them.

enter Leo Tolstoy, a writer who dominated my higher education at the College of Creative Studies at UCSB. our college was supposed to be the cream of the crop. the most talented artists, musicians and writers. and who did the Lit professors fawn over? The Russians. and the top dog, by far was Count Lev Nikolayevich or Лев Николаевич Толстой if you’re nasty.

we read his short stories his long stories. we read his diaries and his newspaper columns. we read his letters and his poems. you could not get through CCS back when i did without a huge amount of knowledge and respect for the most famous man in Russia during the 19th century.

one day Tolstoy was chatting it up with the legendary Russian composer Tchaikovsky when Leo dropped a bomb: he didn’t think Ludwig Van was talented.

Pyotr Ilyich was shocked. And ran home and wrote down exactly how shocked he was and how he was suddenly struggling with how he felt about the writer.

So you can be the great Ludwig Van Beethoven. Toiling at your keyboard. Going deaf. Are deaf. And some asswipe says you aint got it.

But worse, this asswipe is the most important mind for generations. Professors across the sea a century after his death are going to be holding up his works as Untouchable Legend.

he’s the one who says you aint shit. to a peer of yours. to a rival. to a friend.

so, yes Virginia, someone is going to talk shit about your blog, or your boyfriend or your favorite band or about you.

let them.

as elvis costello said, let them talk let them talk let them all talk.

Jesus was nailed to a cross after he healed the sick and fed the hungry.

of course people are gonna misunderstand and mistrust you too.

keep your head down and never stop making that joyful noise.