The article explains, “No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”
The answer, in a nutshell, was no. Joshua Bell got a few nods and some spare change.
Arguably there are many reasons for a thousand people to walk by and hardly notice brilliance. We are busy. We are late for work. We are out of a context to recognize genius. We are inundated with requests for our time and our money. Our eyes our weary, spending their days bouncing back and forth between inboxes, bank accounts, Facebook pages. Our ears have grown deaf to the chatters and hums and beats that mark the monotonous rhythms of the afternoon. Our thoughts are obsessing, calculating, and getting lost in our unspoken griefs or hopes or plans.
We are, as T.S. Eliot reminds us in Burnt Norton, “distracted from distraction by distraction.” Many of our “distractions” our entirely necessary and good: bills certainly need to be paid, emails need to be written, grief needs to be grieved, hopes need to be dreamed up, stored up, pondered.
And yet this article still made something explode inside me, even if I know full well why hundreds of people ignored Joshua Bell. I just know that I don’t want to live my life ignoring beauty. I don’t want to not see the “trees with the lights in it,” as Annie Dillard writes.
Somehow, as I have gotten older, my brain has gotten re-wired more for to-do lists than rest; more for frenzy than presence. I want to remember how to take a walk and notice the sky and the air; observe the murmurs of life; see that whimsical boy delighting in bugs on the sidewalk.
After I read this article today, I looked up at my day’s to-do list, which I hang every morning on my dining room wall. In a blue Sketchers marker, its notes remind me to read, teach, write, call, email, plan, pack….Perhaps the list needs a few more verbs.
Listen. Notice. Receive.
After I read this article today, I looked up at my day’s to-do list, which I hang every morning on my dining room wall. In a blue Sketchers marker, its notes remind me to read, teach, write, call, email, plan, pack….Perhaps the list needs a few more verbs.
Listen. Notice. Receive.
1 comment:
Wonderful and beautifully written! I read the article; love the idea and the astounding results of the exercise. Yep, I believe Western culture is a lot like that, not just in DC but almost everywhere you go, and big cities top the list. We don’t have time, because if we have time we’ll be wondering too much about reality and reality sometimes disappoints us, let us down. Occasionally, I do consider, exceptions apply, that people like being in the “busyness” state, you act and deliver, and keep up with your routine; however, at the same time, that we avoid trouble because of too much thinking, we also avoid beauty and its freedom and pleasure. Life should be more than being completing tasks, should be a journey, an enjoyable journey when one connects with nature and soul.
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