Taking Oneself Too Seriously

A lesson that I learned from my mom (zzg) from my youngest days was that one should never take himself too seriously. I have always tried hard to be faithful to that philosophy.

Over the years I have found that people who take themselves too seriously have no senses of humor and are often intolerable.

The reason I bring this up now is because of an incident that occurred last night. Chaim Dovid did a benefit concert together with a well-known shiny shoe musician. (These gigs are always weird because the SS musicians typically have an orchestra of 15 or more pieces backing them up and Chaim Dovid plays with one guitar player, a keyboard player and a drummer.) Invariably, for convenience sake, CD's drummer uses the drum set brought by the shiny shoe drummer.

Last night during the sound check, CD's drummer, Elyon Shemesh, tested out the drums. Elyon asked SS Drummer if he could move one of the cymbals from one side to the other (Elyon is a lefty and he plays in a quirky way). SS Drummer SAID NO!

Elyon assured SS Drummer that he would put the cymbal back when he was finished (a process that would take all of 30 seconds) but SS Drummer was adamant. As a result, Elyon had to adjust the way he played to accommodate the cymbal placement.

I suppose SS Drummer thinks he is G-d's gift to drumming and that chas v'shalom that he should have to tinker with his holy drums. I just think he needs to chill and stop taking himself so seriously.