The arts can transform our capacity to love and forgive perhaps more than anything else barring genuine love and forgiveness from those who are close to us. Listening to and understanding good music, for example, affords us the first-hand opportunity to perceive the depths of human feeling that extraordinary individuals have been able to discover through their art. As great music nourishes our souls, we are able to comprehend the superior values of love and forgiveness that others have discovered in music and were able to translate for us. Yet the discovery of great music often comes from personal pursuit and true curiosity rather than following the latest trends or considering music only as casual entertainment.

From personal experience, I found it most rewarding to seek out opportunities to listen carefully to the classics, whether Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Indian raga music, Sufi devotional songs, Gregorian chant, Jewish cantorial singing, the Great American Songbook, Blues, Jazz, or Irish folk songs. When something ignites a spark within, one must continue that quest to fulfilment. When you feel genuine love for the music, those feelings can be readily transformed into love and forgiveness toward people and the world at large. The positive values that art and music communicate to the world also include a deep sense of the fellowship of human beings in our quest for meaning in life.

My own creative life has impacted or transformed my values in several ways. Taking an active role in creating or performing music has instilled the self- confidence to shape my existence in ways that do not passively depend on others, and to build a genuine satisfaction in life that does not come from the mere acquisition of material things or money. The spiritual value of the arts for me involves the notion that, since our Creator has the unique capacity to create this world, being creative in the arts allows us to emulate the Creator to a degree, and thus to elevate ourselves above the mundane level of nature, if only for a limited time. Thus, learning to create or perform quality music is one of the finest personal accomplishments that I have been able to pursue in my lifetime.