Quote of the Week...from Ludwig van Beethoven

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly about how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius appears as a distant, guiding sun.                      ---Ludwig van Beethoven

No one is exactly sure...other than Charles Schulz's piano plunking little Schroeder from Peanuts...exactly which day the great classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven's birth falls on.  Heck, they're not even sure which year he was born in! But for the sake of this article, I'll bow to fictional Schroeder's high opinion of his idol and say it's today.  I rummaged through some of Beethoven's more famous quotes and found that they were a mixture of extreme narcissism and pride for his own greatness with times of self-doubt and recrimination.  The above one is actually right in the middle, and pretty profound at that.  I doubt there are few of us who were so specialized and extensively skilled and accomplished in our chosen life endeavors as he, so here's someone who knows what he's talking about.  The more skillful and productive you get in an area, the more knowledgeable you are about it and how painfully much you lack in ability to fully master it.  A little baby who finally learns how to walk may suddenly feel he or she can do anything, but artists, athletes, scientists, or anyone else or who have dedicated themselves to their special field can feel a deep personal lacking and feeling of shortcoming that others may be confounded at, seeing only how they excel.  Not that I am remotely as accomplished in any of these areas as, say, a Beethoven...I am horribly spread out over many areas and with my skills and works in any one of them much lower than if I had decided to concentrate my efforts. But it's true: pick up a beginning foreign language book and after the first two chapters you'll think you can speak the language... a couple of years later you may think you never will.  As for Schroeder and the rest of his Peanuts buddies like good ol' Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy, they were always on the front of my Sunday newspaper comic section as a kid, but I really got into the strip when I bought a couple of paperbacks featuring nothing but the oldest Peanuts comics going back to the 1950s.  I'm grateful both for Schulz and Beethoven...and others whose dedication to their crafts have enhanced my life's enjoyment over the years...