Musical inspiration for when you've hit the frustration barrier on developing your MTB skills

Leonard Cohen: "The difficulty is how the light gets in."

Peter Brown is the co-author of an excellent book called Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. He was interviewed in an Art of Manliness podcast episode a few years ago and mentioned a song by Leonard Cohen called Anthem, from his 1992 album, The Future.

Here are the lyrics from the refrain:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in 

Peter Brown explained that refrain’s relevance for him in the podcast episode:

I would just like to say, I was very struck when Leonard Cohen the musician died recently, and I was re-listening to a lot of his music. He has this great (refrain) in one of his songs. He says, “Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” So when we’re out trying to find our way, and we stumble, instead of feeling like we’re losers, we got to say, 'Ah, there’s some information I can use. There’s light there. There’s information, I’m going to use that.'

Listen and be inspired: