Serendipity and "listening to what you can leave out"

I was reading through pages in my blog today and saw that I quoted Miles Davis nearly a decade ago saying, "I always listen to what I can leave out." I see this as a healthy approach to daily living!

Below is a paragraph from The New York Times today that I saw right after I read my blog... what serendipity. Wikipedia says, "Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise." Specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it. The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company."

From the Times: "Miles Davis' trumpet solos, whether ruminating on a whispered ballad melody or jabbing against a beat, have been models for generations of jazz musicians. Other trumpeters play faster and higher, but more than in any technical feats Mr. Davis's influence lay in his phrasing and sense of space. "I always listen to what I can leave out," he would say."