One area of beauty we can understand beyond rationality being music. Einstein often talked about such things.
Yesterday I wrote about Einstein’s five levels of cognitive prowess, in ascending order:
- Smart
- Intelligent
- Brilliant
- Genius
- Simple
Today I put it to you that there is a sixth level beyond distilling to simplicity, a level that goes beyond the rational mind, and that level is beauty.
One area of beauty we can understand beyond rationality being music. Einstein often talked about such things:
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
In: “How do you go from great to elite?” I wrote about Josh Waitzkin, who, in talking about typical business leaders, said:
They’re soaking in inputs and so they live this reactive lifestyle. Their creative process is dominated by external noise as opposed to internal music.
I started drafting this piece before a call with a client, who was, after our call, about to lead a meeting that felt really challenging to them. We talked it through, then we stopped our call a few minutes early so that they could tune out the external noise and listen to their inner music prior to getting on that call.
Ask yourself, how often do you give yourself time to sit in silence and allow your inner music to be heard?