(For an uncompressed version, download the Quicktime file below on your right.)

The lyrics are based on a story I wrote about on my web site a few years ago:

"Two old Chinese farmers who hadn't seen each other for some time were getting up to date:

"So what ever happened to that beautiful white stallion of yours?"

"Oh, he ran away."

"That's too bad."

"Well, not so bad, he came back and brought a herd of wild horses with him."

"That's good."

"Well, not so good. My son was trying to ride one of them and got thrown and broke his leg."

"That's bad!"

"Well, not so bad. They came looking for soldiers to fight in the war and he didn't have to go."

"That's good..."

The story never ends, because every event, whether it seems good or bad at the time, has consequences, and those consequences have consequences in turn. We can never know whether the pain and suffering of the present moment may be the necessary prelude to untold joy at some future time--and therein lies one of our limitations, at least until we have time travel--we cannot know the future.

In that very limitation lies a great freedom: we can be free of the knowledge of good and evil, free of the pain of gain and loss. We can take the larger view in which good and evil, gain and loss balance out, because these opposites only appear from a limited, short-term perspective. The real limitation is in thinking we know the value of any isolated event."

The music was produced in Logic Pro 8 and Ableton Live 6. The video was done in Cinema 4D, Motion 3, and Final Cut Pro 6. Thanks to Alex Lindsay and the Pixel Corps for all I've learned there, and especially to Dr. Sassmannshausen, aka Sassi. I've also learned a lot from lynda.com and MacProVideo.com