Maybe we will keep playing what’s on the score in front of us, just as we’ve been taught. Habits we acquired so long ago we can’t even remember. Otherwise it’s chaos, right?

But there are moments when a gust of wind blows the score off the music stand. Leaving us standing there alone, chuckling at the predicament. Alone with nothing but what we brought to this dance. Waiting for a sign.

Times like this require a certain looseness of mind.

In a crisis, creative people have always instinctively found each other. There’s a place they go to huddle up. It is a cleanroom, a cathedral without pews, a space designed for conceptual leaps.

But we are all creative people. We just needed something like this to give us permission.

Imagine a billion humans now easing into a new creative hypermode. Hesitating. Trusting that the missing notes will come in on the wind.

Miles Davis said, “The biggest challenge in jazz improvisation is not to play the notes you could play, but to wait, hesitate, then play what’s not there."

So let’s play.

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