The New York Times Loves Your Book. What's Next?

Friends, here is this week’s episode.

But first, a story.

In high school, I played trumpet in concert, jazz, and marching bands. Music was a big part of my life, and the man who oversaw the artistic progression of thousands of young people during his career was Mr. Wallace, AKA “King Wally,” if you were impertinent in a way I was not yet bold enough to be.

Mr. Wallace set standards. He was a disciplinarian. Say you flubbed a note and forced the entire 40-piece concert band to stop. If he knew it was because you hadn’t practiced the way you were supposed to, he might call you out right there in front of friends, and classmates, and that girl you were working up the nerve to ask out on a date.

Mr. Wallace loved music and cared deeply about his students. Later, as I looked back on how he operated, I became convinced his aim was not to surgically attach us to an instrument for the rest of our lives. But musicianship, Mr. Wallace knew, is an ancient tradition that could serve as scaffolding helping us do what I recently heard Elaine Castillo describe as the work of “build[ing] a soul.”

Before I met Mr. Wallace, I didn’t appreciate that there was any such thing as technique. I thought that if you were good at something, it was because you were born with all the facility you could demonstrate in any given moment. But that’s usually not true. There are ways of listening and practicing that build capacity. Talent exists, but committing to the process of developing a craft, which is to say, of developing yourself, may matter more.

If we are lucky, we are introduced to pursuits that engage us in the work and joys of cultivating a soul.

Several years after I graduated, I was still in touch with Mr. Wallace. We talked about music, and life, and sports. One day in his basement full of books and records—I think this was shortly after I’d finished college—he told me I could no longer call him “Mr. Wallace.” His position was that I was an adult now and that we were on equal footing. I was no longer a child. I could use “Alvin,” his first name, or pick something else that I was comfortable with. 

I said the notion that he and I were anything like peers seemed absurd to me, but if “Mr. Wallace” was no longer an option, I would call him “Obi-Wan.” In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi was Luke Skywalker’s teacher. I might technically be an adult, but I was definitely still his student.

My recent interactions with Elizabeth reminded me of that conversation with Mr. Wallace. Once upon a time, I was a journalist. And she was my first editor. Elizabeth taught me how to write. Yet somehow we ended up talking like peers—and friends—on my podcast about her work that is getting so much praise right now.

If you’re lucky, you reach an age where you do something that seems inevitable—in a good way. Some part of your vocation or avocation feels so right as to have been predestined. What else, one might ask, could you have done?

For me, however, so much felt contingent. I might have wanted a thing: would I pursue it? And even if I did, would that door open?

So when someone you respect stands at the threshold of the rest of your life and insists you belong on the other side with them, that very timely expression of love might make you cry.