If I’d been better schooled back then in the art of accompaniment, I would have

understood how important it is to honor another person’s ability to make choices. I hope I would have understood, as good accompanists do, that everybody is in their own spot, on their own pilgrimage, and your job is to meet them where they are, help them chart their own course. I wish I had followed some advice that is rapidly becoming an adage: Let others voluntarily evolve.

To see a person well, you have to see them as culture inheritors and as culture creators.

The lesson was an important one: the things you choose not to do often matter as much as the things you choose to do. The real test of a person is the degree to which they are willing to nonconform to do the right thing.

2.6. Setting the Standards

It is inevitable if you enter into relations with people on a regular basis. . . that you will grow to be like them. . . . Place is an extinguished piece of coal nest to a live one, and either it will cause the other one to die out, or the live one will make the other reignite. . . . Remember that if you consort with someone covered in dirt you can hardly avoid getting a little grimy yourself.

• Epictetus

Working with a master firsthand is the best education; it’s the surest way of raising the bar. Their excellence demands your excellence. But most of aren’t lucky enough to have that opportunity. Still, not all is lost. If you don’t have the chance to work with a master directly, you can still surround yourself with people who have higher standards by reading about them and their work.