My mom and I went to hear Itzhak Perlman play this week. In other words, the best violinist in the world played music for us this week—exquisite, rich, transcendent music. He gave us an astonishing gift by doing what he loves to do.

How remarkable that music is designed to be shared. No one practices an instrument with the goal of sitting in her room and listening to herself. Musicians play hours of scales and arpeggios so that they can perform, so that we can hear each perfectly formed note. They do all this work with the express intent of giving away what they create.

And they’re not the only ones. People don’t make scientific discoveries and keep them secret or develop medicine to heal only themselves. They don’t build buildings that no one else can enter.

My ego, on the other hand, operates in direct opposition to these examples. It has a single message, which it trumpeted loudly this week: I, or more exactly it, am the only one that matters. It’s much too smart to say this directly. It has learned the art of subtlety. It says that other people get everything they want and I don’t—during the same week I heard the best violinist in the world!—or it’s too hard to be loving and generous or I’m messing everything up.

At the concert, Perlman was joined by pianist Rohan De Silva. During the opening movement of the first piece, I thought the piano was too loud because I sometimes couldn’t hear the violin that well, but part way through, I realized that one has to listen to the two instruments together. The music is written for both of them—sometimes the violin is the main character, and sometimes it plays a supporting role. As I listened to the interplay, the relationship between the two strands of notes, a new and more beautiful whole emerged.

My ego doesn’t recognize that there’s a symphony going on in this life. It believes it can create security and control for itself, but there’s no music in that approach. Existence is shared.

I think composers must hear all the instruments supporting and taking off from one another as they write music. Symphonies must arrive as a package deal. And so do we.