In 2001, I sat in a philosophy class at Boston College. We were discussing the meaning of performing an activity for solely the pleasure of engaging in the activity, free of all external benefits. Merely the essence of the activity is enough; it can stand alone. While I didn't wholly understand what this really meant to me at the time, I do now. Activities with this form of 3-dimensional-satisfaction-driving-capacity that stir your heart and ignite your mind, seem to almost lock you into an experience where time is locked out, and the participant and the activity become a unified team, catalyzing each other into an oblivion of total-and-complete-neuron-firing-rapture - ie; it's off the hook :)
I will name a few of activities of my own that to be frank - do it for me: writing, music, dance, photography, running, conversation. By their very nature, these activities, are enough.
These activities are, what a 25-year-long best friend Kylah and I used to describe in fourth grade, as "delicious."
Now I bring you to a talk by Robert Gupta, violinist with the LA Philharmonic who takes this a step further and shares a story about not only the "delicious" properties of music but its medicinal and sanity balancing capabilities. Make sure to listen all the way through to his rendition of Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 @ 6:27 min.
Listen for yourself. Chills? Check. Listen on repeat 47 times? Check.
"This is the very essence of art...this is the very reason we made music...we take something that exists within all of us at our very fundamental core, our emotions and through our artistic lenses, through our creativity we are able to shape those emotions into reality and the reality of that expression reaches all of us and moves us, inspires, and unites us." Robert Gupta
Photo by Patrick Frost.
Music is medicine. Now that is a delicious statement, Mr. Gupta. Thank you for this, Lauren!
ReplyDeleteBeing a musician myself, I can definitely say that I've experienced the same thing. Everything from playing my final "goodbyes" for dying relatives to playing in BWI during the Christmastime mayhem. But music does more than heal and soothe. Here's one of my favorite stories:
ReplyDeleteWhile a student at CUA, I was the music director for one of the masses on campus that took place in the Crypt of the National Shrine (bnsic.org). One Sunday, I was practicing a piece that would be used for mass with the organist. All of a sudden, not 30 seconds after we stopped to discuss something, I heard someone SOBBING behind the organ. Around came a man with a very pleased look on his face and a woman in excited hysterics. Then the man said to me, "I just wanted to tell you how much that music meant to us. We were here just admiring the Shrine, and this music just moved me to ask my girlfriend to marry me, and she just said yes!"
"performing an activity for solely the pleasure of engaging in the activity, free of all external benefits. Merely the essence of the activity is enough; it can stand alone. While I didn't wholly understand what this really meant to me at the time, I do now. Activities with this form of 3-dimensional-satisfaction-driving-capacity that stir your heart and ignite your mind, seem to almost lock you into an experience where time is locked out, and the participant and the activity become a unified team, catalyzing each other into an oblivion of total-and-complete-neuron-firing-rapture - ie; it's off the hook :)" sounds like this could be describing a serial killer... Yes, power and creative expression is a double edged sword.
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