As a teenager, I wanted to be a singer-songwriter. I dreamed of being the next James Taylor, John Denver, or Jim Croce. I wrote half a dozen songs, including ones about an ex-girlfriend, a new girlfriend, and a church missionary companion. I even wrote a song I subtitled “The Great Plagiarism,” combining lines from several popular songs into one. I am still waiting for one of those songs to reach the Billboard Top 100. Sadly, of the few songs I wrote, I can now remember the melody of only one.

More recently, I thought it would be cool to write a Broadway musical. I got as far as the first four lines of the first song. Then last Christmas, I took Leonard Cohen’s hit, Hallelujah, and wrote my own Christmas carol to its melody. But I forgot my own lyrics in the middle of my performance at our family’s annual Christmas talent show. Advice to self: Don’t quit your day job. Oh, wait! I’m retired, so I already did! But I relate to these words from the author Kurt Vonnegut: “Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.”

With that background, I got excited when the movie Power Ballad[i] came out. It tells the story of a former boy-band member (played by Nick Jonas) who steals a song written by a wedding singer (played by Paul Rudd) and turns it into an international smash hit. Like Paul Rudd’s character, I imagined the excitement I would feel hearing a song I wrote on the radio. Check out this scene from the film:

The wedding singer spends the rest of the movie trying to prove to the world (and his family) that he wrote the song.

When I finished my first novel, Unrighteous Dominion, I got excited when the feedback from a handful of family and friends who I let read it came back positive. I suddenly imagined book tours, royalty checks, and even a movie version around the corner. But it never happened. So I wrote three sappy little Christmas books, thinking they would jump-start my writing career. I’m still waiting. So I added a blog post about what I learned from movies and now have a whopping 24 official subscribers (thank you if you are one of them, although I get a couple hundred views on Facebook each month). And if you read my blog post from last month, you know I just finished almost 900 pages of a personal history that I realize few people will read or even care about. Yet I still write and am itching to get to my next project. Through it all, I have learned that the joy is in the journey, not the destination.

But let’s get back to music.

What makes music so special? Neuroscientists tell us that music releases dopamine, improves cognitive skills such as memory, attention, and problem-solving, and activates multiple regions of the brain, promoting neural connectivity and plasticity. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “Music is the universal language of mankind.” I like these words of Orson Scott Card, who wrote, “Music isn’t just a pleasure, a transient satisfaction. It’s a need, a deep hunger; and when the music is right, it’s joy. Love. A foretaste of heaven.” This is how I like to describe it: The written word inspires my mind, but music touches my heart.

I recently watched the movie, The Music Never Stopped.[ii] It is the true story of a young man (played by Lou Taylor Pucci) whose brain tumor destroyed his ability to retain any memories, and of his father (played by J.K. Simmons), who connects with him through music.  Listening to music from earlier periods somehow awakened those long-lost memories. Here is the trailer for the film (it is currently streaming on Prime Video):

The Music Never Stopped inspired me to dive deeper into how music affects the brain, and I discovered the documentary Alive Inside: The Story of Music and Memory.[iii] The documentary follows Dan Cohen as he fights to improve the health care system for the elderly by bringing music back into their lives. Listening to their favorite music helps to restore memory and a sense of self in nursing home patients. I am amazed at how alive these patients become when they hear an old, familiar song. Here is the trailer for the film (it is currently streaming on Prime Video):

I am putting together the playlist of my life, which will include my favorite songs from the 1960s to the present. I want those songs played at my celebration of life after I’ve moved on. Well, at least some of them. I am surprised by how many songs I loved from each decade of my life, and how listening to them brings back memories of happy times, sad times, and everything in between. If my kids or grandkids read this, my wish is that when I am so old that you need to put me in a nursing home, you will let me keep my Apple Music subscription and a pair of AirPods.

Here are the words from the closing scene of Alive Inside: The Story of Music and Memory (with a slight paraphrase at the end):

Music gives us something we deeply hunger for, something we’ve pursued for thousands of years, rewired our very brains for. We need music. It awakens in us our most profound safety—the safety of living in concert with each other and our own selves. And that is why, together, we’re going to do this one small kindness [of bringing music into our lives and the lives of others]. [It will] bring life into the places where it’s been forgotten. And together we will listen.

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[i] Power Ballad:

• Production Companies: 30West, the Irish Film Board, and Screen Ireland
• Director: John Carney
• Writers: John Crnery and Peter McDonald
• Starring: Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, and Peter McDonald
• Release date: Jun 3, 2026

[ii] The Music Never Stopped: 

• Production Companies: Essential Pictures and Mr. Tamborine Man
• Director: Jim Kohlberg
• Writers: Gwyn Lurie, Gary Marks, and Oliver Sacks
• Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci, J. K. Simmons, and Julia Ormond
• Release date: October 27, 2011

[iii] Alive Inside: The Story of Music and Memory:

• Production Companies: Projector Media and The Shelley & Donal Rubin Foundation
• Director: Michael Rossato-Bennett
• Writer: Michael Rossato-Bennett
• Starring: Dan Cohen, Bill Thomas, and Concetta Tomaino
• Release date: October 18, 2014

Like millions of other older people, I have become a pickleball enthusiast (or “crippleball,” as one of my friends calls it). I play at least twice a week, and I’m not bad for a 73-year-old. I win more than I lose, and when I lose, I, of course, blame it on my partner. Seriously, I make my fair share of unforced errors. Sometimes my partner and I fall way behind and are in danger of being pickled (losing 11-0). When we fall way behind but regain the serve and the chance to win a few points, I often turn to my partner and say Jim Carey’s classic line from this scene in the film Dumb and Dumber:[i]

“So, you’re telling me there’s a chance.” I have always thought the movie Dumb and Dumber was, well, dumb. But I always remember that scene and the wisdom behind that famous line. It is amazing what we can do when we believe. Or, as the song from The Prince of Egypt tells us, “There can be miracles when you believe.” Believing was a primary theme of one of my favorite TV series, Ted Lasso. In the film Rudy, Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger defied the odds by believing he could play college football at Notre Dame, even though everyone told him he was too small. As I watch the current NBA postseason, the commentators often remark on how much better a player is if he plays with confidence.

We see the power of belief everywhere in sports. It’s hard to win without it. But it’s not just a sports phenomenon. I used to religiously watch the TV series M*A*S*H. I don’t remember many of the episodes, but I often think about the one where the doctors run out of morphine. The injured soldiers are in great pain, but there is no medicine to give them. So, what do the doctors do? They tell the soldiers they are giving them a shot of morphine, even though it’s a placebo. The soldiers believe they are receiving morphine, and, miraculously, their pain lessens.

 There is a tradition in my family and in the church I was raised in of writing a personal history. Most are about 25-50 pages and offer a brief summary of the person’s life. I decided to take a deeper dive. I once listened to an interview with actress Mary-Louise Parker, who was promoting her new book, Dear Mr. You. The book consists of a series of letters she wrote to the men in her life, both real and imagined. Taken together, the letters form a biography of her life. Ms. Parker inspired me to do something similar. I wrote letters to my parents, my wife, Janene, my bosses, God, and each of my five kids, recounting experiences I had with each. Two years later, those letters totaled almost 900 pages!

What do I do with a 900-page tome? I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to buy it. I figured my kids might read it, at least the letter to them, and maybe a few grandkids might read a few parts. But reality hit me. Everyone is busy with their own lives, creating their own histories, and few, if any, would care much about mine. After a generation or two, no one would read even a part of it, and no one would care about me or my life’s experiences. In short, I lost all belief in the project and was ready to just forget it. It wasn’t even worth the cost of toner and paper to print it out.

But then a book saved me.

I recently read The Power of Beliefs[ii] by one of my favorite authors, positive psychologist Shawn Achor. To live a happier, more successful, and more fulfilling life, Achor suggests we develop these seven core beliefs:

• My behavior matters.
• I am grateful.
• I matter.
• I have something to give.
• I am not alone.
• This work is meaningful.
• There is something greater than me.

My personal history now has a different meaning for me. I now realize I wrote it less for posterity and more to strengthen these core beliefs. Kahlil Gibran once said, “To be able to look back upon one’s life in satisfaction is to live twice.” After 73 years, I can say I am generally satisfied with my life. It has been fun to relive and, in some cases, reimagine my experiences, with the benefit of hindsight and, hopefully, a bit of wisdom. Or, as Mark Twain said about his biography: “It is the truest of all books because it consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shrinkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain, straight truth.”

The same could be said about my letters.

One of my all-time favorite movies is Back to the Future.[iii] Although some of the jokes and gags have become dated, its underlying theme remains timeless: Marty McFly can go back in time and change history.  As you will recall, at the beginning of the film, George McFly (Marty’s father) is the epitome of nerdom. He works for Biff, who bullied him in high school. But when Marty McFly goes into the past, this happens:

That punch changes everything. When Marty returns to the present, he finds a father he hardly recognizes. George has become super cool; even Biff, his high school bully, now works for him. In that one high school moment when George told himself he could do something meaningful to protect someone he loved, he changed his future forever.

No, I didn’t create a scene in my history where I punched a bully to save Janene. But reviewing my life made me realize how much I have to be grateful for. The experiences I had were meaningful and mattered to me and to others. I am not alone. I developed relationships that have lasted for decades. I can do hard things. In short, writing my history has cemented those core beliefs in me, and in so doing, will change my future.

I continue to struggle with Achor’s last core belief: There is something greater than me. I no longer regularly attend the church I was raised in, or I’m on emeritus status, as I like to call it. But researchers of both the believer and nonbeliever variety agree that a belief in a higher power improves the quality of our lives. According to Shawn Achor, studies show that people with religious beliefs live between 4 and 6.8 years longer than those without a religious affiliation, and have higher levels of happiness and mental well-being. And the greater a person’s commitment to their religion, the greater the positive effect on their happiness.

I will save the details of my spiritual journey for another time. Suffice it to say that I have a hope of a higher power, but I cannot say I have knowledge or even a strong belief in one. But I can acknowledge the benefits of having such a belief. In the film Overcomer,[iv] a young cross-country runner, suffering from asthma, finds God. In doing so, she strengthens each of Achor’s core beliefs. Here is a scene from the movie:  

Knowing that we were created and loved by God can be uplifting and a balm to a struggling soul. Although I have not felt God’s love in any personal way, I can still be grateful. And I am. I realize I hit life’s lottery, being born where I was and to whom I was, being blessed with so many wonderful family and friends, and never having to worry about my family’s needs. I wish everyone could say the same.   

When it comes to my letters comprising my personal history, I can say, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance” that others will read them. But then, the real value of those letters might not be for others, but for me. Reliving the positive aspects of my past will have a similar positive impact on my future, knowing that I am not alone, that my past actions mattered to others, that I can overcome challenges and the loss of loved ones, and that, at least for me, my life has had meaning.

I hope, no, believe, everyone can say the same.

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[i] Dumb and Dumber:

• Production Companies: New Line Cinema and Motion Picture Corporation of America (MPCA)
• Directors: Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly
• Writers: Peter Farrelly, Bennett Yellin, and Bobby Farrelly
• Starring: Jim Carey, Jeff Daniels, and Lauren Holly
• Release date: December 16, 1994

[ii] The Power of Belief, by Shawn Achor, Copyright 2026, published by Crown Currency, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group.

[iii] Back to the Future:

• Production Companies: Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, and U-Drive Productions
• Director: Robert Zemeckis
• Writers: Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale
• Starring: Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, and Lea Thompson
• Release date: July 3, 1985

[iv] Overcomer:

• Production Companies: Affirm Films and Provident Films
• Director: Alex Kendrick
• Writers: Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick
• Starring: Alex Kendrick, Priscilla C. Shirer, and Cameron Arnett
• Release date: August 23, 2019