I started out as a child

We all started out as children. There is much to be said for the childlike attitude of wonder and discovery, which support investigation and learning and creativity. Some of us, however, don't apparently get much beyond that stage. The downside is the personality trait of someone who has the other childlike characteristics, such as showing off, and demanding immediate gratification, and possessiveness and controlling.

Much of our adult life, I think, is spent in learning how to deal with people who have experienced lopsided development, overcompensating for some perceived weakness by exaggerating the opposite trait. Most often this results in an obsessive need to control.

All of us have a need to control whatever we can in order to reduce the pain or irritation elements of daily living. But some of us put control before understanding. At his trial for heresy, Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Controllers suffer either from an excess of self-examination (leading to recrimination and guilt) or from an excess of denial. "We have seen the enemy and it is us", said Pogo.

In our drumming group from time to time, we have new people joining. Some of them are modest hangbackers, who are fascinated by what they hear, and gently try to emulate it until they become more confident. The opposite are the people who come in, think they understand the language of the piece, and end up beating the crap out of it to their own perception of the rhythm. The worst case is the dundun (bass drum) player who thinks he understands the rhythm, but soon loses it and ends up beating the drum at his own pace, or putting in accents where the song begs for silence.

Perhaps one of the most revealing aspects of learning how to perform in an African drum circle is the fact that over time, you begin to realize, if you have any sensitivity to the culture at all, that music is not performance. It is innately spiritual, and it is all about communicating within a group. It is about cooperation and perception, about reigning in your normal need for control in order to appreciate the contribution of others: it is about melding into a whole in order to create a greater. A drum circle is a symphony, or else it's a cacophony.

Some days you just get a little tired of people who don't get it. But then you have to remember that maybe that was how you started too.