All cultures have these feelings about non-functional areas of activity. And the more time people have on their hands, the more they commit it to those areas.

Repetition doesn't really exist

Any constraint is part of the skeleton that you build the composition on - including your own incompetence.

Human development thus far has been fueled and guided by the feeling that things could be, and are probably going to be, better.

Law is always better than war.

Some people say Bowie is all surface style and second-hand ideas, but that sounds like a definition of pop to me.

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.