“When I’m riding my motorcycle, I’m glad to be alive.
When I stop riding my motorcycle, I’m glad to be alive.”

                                                                          Neil Peart 
​



​Man Cannot Live by Drumming Alone

He needs motorcycles and kindness and self-respect.  And also
nature and miracles and beauty, and friends and family.

A tribute to Neil Peart of Rush and his sense ​that life itself,
in community with others, and also for its own sake, is a miracle.

​

Nature, Miracles, and Beauty

​“I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty. Art gives a spiritual depth to existence -- I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books. And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation. I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder. I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.”

― Neil Peart, The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa

Love and Respect​

“-i was "far and away"-riding my motorcycle along an american back road, skiing through the snowy Quebec woods, or lying awake in a backwater motel. the theme i was grappling with was nothing less than the Meaning of Life, and i was pretty sure i had defined it: love and respect.

love and respect, love and respect-i have been carrying those words around with me for two years, daring to consider that perhaps they convey the real meaning of life. beyond basic survival needs, everybody wants to be loved and respected. and neither is any good without the other. love without respect can be as cold as pity; respect without love can be as grim as fear.
love and respect are the values in life that most contribute to "the pursuit of happiness"-and after, they are the greatest legacy we can leave behind. it's an elegy you'd like to hear with your own ears: "you were loved and respected."
​
if even one person can say that about you, it's a worthy achievement, and if you can multiply that many times-well, that is true success.

among materialists, a certain bumper sticker is emblematic: "he who dies with the most toys wins!"
well, no-he or she who dies with the most love and respect wins...

then there's love and respect for oneself-equally hard to achieve and maintain. most of us, deep down, are not as proud of ourselves as we might pretend, and the goal of bettering ourselves-at least partly by earning the love and respect of others-is a lifelong struggle.

Philo of Alexandria gave us that generous principle that we have somehow succeeded in mostly ignoring for 2,000 years: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

​― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time
Begin the day
With a friendly voice
A companion, unobtrusive
Plays that song that's so elusive
And the magic music makes your morning mood
Off on your way
Hit the open road
There is magic at your fingers
For the spirit ever lingers
Undemanding contact
In your happy solitude
Invisible airwaves
Crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle
With the energy
Emotional feedback
On a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price
Almost free
All this machinery
Making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted
It's really just a question
Of your honesty, yeah your honesty
One likes to believe
In the freedom of music
But glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion
Of integrity, yeah
Invisible airwaves
Crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle
With the energy
Emotional feedback
On a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price
Almost free
For the words of the profits
Were written on the studio wall
Concert hall
And echoes with the sounds, of salesmen, of salesmen, of salesmen
Open Horizons