On rest and the ship of Theseus question
Sharon's Weekly Head Dump
Because the work (playing the piano) I thoughtlessly chose to pursue as a young invincible teen requires my brain, muscles, and fine motor control to all be in top working order, I have had to accept that taking proper care of my corporeal form is a burden my adult self must bear. I have tried mentally beating myself up when my body is not up to the work and, surprises on surprises, that somehow does not magically make me want to do things!
I started out this week ready to dive into doing all the work and plowing through all the projects, and then sometime around 1:30 PM on Monday my body went “no ❤️” and that was that.
Taking time to rest is so anathema to everything I know that it felt really radical this week to take things more slowly and practice less, but I know from past experience that pushing through the tiredness just means I’ll hit a wall and feel really crappy later. It also helped that I’d seen these posts from Hilary Hahn, whose musings on practicing are genuinely great: