Beware the barrenness of a busy life. –Socrates
EDITORS’ NOTE: They say truth is stranger than fiction, and in most cases it’s also more interesting…
The Violinist is a true story about a man in a metro station in Washington DC who played six Bach pieces on his violin for about 45 minutes. The story illuminates the warning of Socrates to “Beware of the barrenness of a busy life.”
What was particularly striking was this:
“A three-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent – without exception – forced their children to move on quickly.”
Children are instinctively honest, and perceive the truth more clearly than the fallacy of a train or some other man-made schedule by which people manipulate their and other’s lives, they simply have not yet learned to prevaricate, pretend and rush on without stopping to pay respects to Truth and Beauty. That is why they are called Innocent. Re-read Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. Cows & Kids ? There’s a difference ?
The article is a diversion from the usual political diatribes and what one publisher calls “hard news”. It’s a human interest story well worth a moment’s thought.
by Paul Balles
Following is a true story that evolved out of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities. It was organized and conducted by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.
Joshua Bell
While the story has enjoyed nominal circulation, it deserves a larger audience. The full original story can be seen online here: Pearls Before Breakfast
The situation:
In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.
During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
After about three minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.
About 4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
At 6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
At 10 minutes:
A three-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent – without exception – forced their children to move on quickly.
At 45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only six people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.
After 1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theatre in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.
Someone suggested that this experiment raised several questions:
- In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
- If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
- Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made, how many other things are we missing as we rush through life?
There’s more to this story than a question of whether we can appreciate beauty anywhere at any time.
The question of whether we appreciate talent in an unexpected context is more relevant to most of us.
How many of us take the time or have the inclination to read or listen to great thinkers and writers?
How many people are even vaguely aware of what’s going on in the world? How many of us attempt to justify ignorance with clever statements?
Perhaps Mark Twain was right when he grumbled, “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”
We move through life absorbed in ourselves, in our jobs, our obligations, expectations, hopes, yesterday’s problems, today’s anxieties and tomorrow’s dreams.
How much do we miss as we rush through life?
Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.
Debbie, thank you for this precious transmittal. It took me several minutes (and a visit to the url) to realize that this is a 2007 “performance.” In the ensuing 4 years, if anything, the U.S. forced march toward coarseness and indifference to beauty –
– in nature (as global warming heats to the point of no return and the energy industry is intent on ravishing coal and tar sands ecospheres) and
– in humanity (as U.S. CIA or NATO air attacks murder 24 Pakistani human beings in one strike as though they were swatting flies; as the U.S.-enabled Zionist entity shames the Holy Land with its presence, persecuting every Palestinian human being every day in evermore depraved ways; as U.S. cop-thugs deny citizens the Constitutional right to peaceable assembly).
Along the way of those 4 years, the U.S. has transitioned from 2007 Dubya Bush to 2011 Obama with scarcely a burp in our overseas belligerence and fewer domestic civil rights, all in the name of fighting the “terrorism” which is induced by our own state-terroristic policies.
Life for me wouldn’t be worth the trip without classical music, but I had to wonder: if I had been among the throng that day, would I have just passed by Bell playing Bach?
Bob
Reminds of a scat from a Steely Dan tune (Reelin’ in the Years?) … how did it go .. ” .. you wouldn’t know a diamond if you held it in your hand ..”
Didn’t read the full story – but there are ears and hearts that easily recognized the pureness of resonance and truthfulness of the violinist.
I don’t think it’s all about “rushing”. It’s more that, for the most part, the American people are complete idiots.
Yeah! And whose fault was that?
Why blame the ignorant, the unaware / Sleeper?
Who herds We THE People into time slots, and imposes it on us? The 9-5 working day? etc.
The 24 / 7?
Who imposed “time” on Humanity?
Who is cutting Art / Theater from the School Curriculum?
Who is giving THE PEople, cell phones, ipods/ipads, Video games, and Dancing with the Stars?
Who is foreclosing on homes, sending jobs overseas, creating tent cities, & OWS’s, countrywide, planetwide?
The blame belongs to the CORPORATIONS / BANKERSTERS / FEDS!
It gets old, and I’m tired of We THE People being blamed for EVERY single thing that is wrong with the world, instead of putting it square of “the powers that should NOT be.”
P.S. Would Paul Balles have stopped to listen?
True but I wasn’t talking about who’s to blame for most of us becoming complete idiots.
“THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON”
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
–Wm. Wordsworth-1806.
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
— Ezra Pound –1913
And… closer to the bone….
Cantico del Sole
The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
Troubles my sleep,
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America, The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
Troubles my sleep.
Nunc dimittis, now lettest thou thy servant,
Now lettest thou thy servant
Depart in peace.
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation…
Oh well!
It troubles my sleep.
–Ezra Pound
Bonnie wrote: P.S. Would Paul Balles have stopped to listen?
YES!
I’m glad for articles like this one..reminds me of “carpe diem.” Thank you Mr. Balles.