Life advice from Leonard Cohen. And a bit of elaboration from the man himself:

If you have to come up with a philosophical ground, that is "Ring the bells that still can ring." It's no excuse... the dismal situation.. and the future is no excuse for an abdication of your own personal responsibilities towards yourself and your job and your love. "Ring the bells that still can ring": they're few and far between but you can find them. "Forget your perfect offering", that is the hang-up, that you're gonna work this thing out. Because we confuse this idea and we've forgotten the central myth of our culture which is the expulsion from the garden of Eden. This situation does not admit of solution or perfection. This is not the place where you make things perfect, neither in your marriage, nor in your work, nor anything, nor your love of God, nor your love of family or country. The thing is imperfect. And worse, there is a crack in everything that you can put together, physical objects, mental objects, constructions of any kind. But that's where the light gets in, and that's where the resurrection is and that's where the return, that's where the repentance is. It is with the confrontation, with the brokenness of things.

I was thinking yesterday how perfect his recent live show is. His songs are reinvented, sometimes distant from the recorded versions, almost always for the better. I've never been a fan of the song 'Bird on a Wire', but his performance last week, with pitch perfect accompaniment from his band, almost had me in tears. He's funny as well - self depreciating. He said he was grateful for us still being there after the interval: "What if I'd come out and there was nobody here...I'm depressed enough already..." And there are songs like this - simple and profound at the same time, and 'Famous Blue Raincoat', which only he can ever hope to fully understand. I'm privileged to have seen him twice in recent years.

I'll shut up about him now, for the time being anyway.