The Pun Also Rises(as seen in the North Adams Transcript)
"Wait A Minute"A recent article in the Washington Post showcased an experiment performed earlier this year where one of the world's greatest violinists played in a DC Metro station during rush hour, to see if people would stop and listen to his music. As it turns out, the answer was generally no. Even when one of the top violinists ever to pick up a bow was playing some of the world's most beautiful classical music on a priceless Stradivarius, almost all of the thousand people who walked by largely ignored him. I wasn't surprised. I've always said there are two types of people in the world: Those who believe that the world can be simplistically bifurcated into two opposed groups, and those who don't. Since I appear to be part of the former, I'll say that the world can also be divided into two groups another way: Those who would fiddle while Rome burns, and those too busy burning things to stop and listen to a fiddle. Unfortunately, it would appear that our world consists mostly of the latter. There was once a famous cellist in Sarajevo who continued playing even while the city was being shelled by mortars. A reporter asked him if he was crazy for playing the cello during that mess, and he replied that if they were going to ask someone if they were crazy, it should be the people doing the shelling. Most of us don't burn Rome or shell Sarajevo. But most of us do go to work. And amidst our hectic day, it may not be very often that we take a few minutes to appreciate something beautiful. More likely, we hurry about from place to place rather than focus on the panoply of potentially interesting places in between. We are, perhaps, too much in a rush, and not enough open to getting a rush. (At least, not a natural rush from experiencing something out in the world. People get a slightly more packaged rush by starting their day with coffee. And if they start their day with conservative drive-time radio, they may hear a very packaged Rush who many feel is unnatural, in part because he was fond of some substances that give yet another form of unnatural rush.) The point is that people are too busy to stop and smell the roses. It is easy to write this off by saying that commuters have places to be, and workers have things that must be done. And this is not incorrect; most workplaces require the attendance of their workers, and would not look kindly on someone who was habitually stopping to smell the roses. (Unless, of course, they worked at a rose-smelling operation doing quality control for floral bouquets.) If time waits for no man, bosses tend to wait even less. It's like the old saying goes, "He who hesitates is lost, and often, so is his job." So it's excusable that people hurry by most of life, because appreciating life is not their job, right? Wrong. If your job is not to enjoy life, then the inverse should also be true -- your life is not your job. (Unless, again, you happen to work for LifeCo, in the flower-smelling division.) It's still useful to take time to smell the flowers, even when everyone around you is hurrying by. Maybe even especially when everyone around you is hurrying by. The destination of life is death, so enjoying the journey is important. That's why it's worth taking a few minutes each day to appreciate something. If you don't find something out in the world to appreciate, be that something. Give the world music, or art, or words, or even a silly dance. Wear socks on your head. Anything that brings a little light into the world so someone else can take a moment to appreciate it. Every time someone says, "He who hesitates is lost," I reply with "Look before you leap." Usually, people interpret this to mean you should look where you're going. But perhaps there is another reason to look before you leap: If you never look around before jumping to the next place, then you'll miss some of life's beautiful music along the way. __________________________ All work on this page is copyright Seth Brown. If you are sharing it, please give attribution. If you want to reprint it, please contact me first. |