Sunday 29 September 2013

Parents, patterns and metaphors of music

We don't remember being born, we take our early years as given, we build our lives on a platform we've never recognised, because we haven't taken time or attention to check it out.

Our parents are these magical people whose influence is inescapable, though we may dare to stand up to what we have experienced.

Love between parents and children is one of the strongest instincts ever. It's also one of the most misinterpreted.

 
 

 
Most of us have the experience of responding to parents and responding to our children, and we, ourselves, are the difficult bridge between these two responses, because the construction of the bridge is not a given, but that which we create, ourselves.
 
We're born into a pattern, an emotional pattern, a pattern of belief, a cultural expectation, an economic reality, an historical sequence. We're not responsible for the pattern, yet we're responsible for how we change, don't change, ignore, take responsibility for that pattern.
 
 
You have to get personal, and start paying attention to what was going on, what was happening in respect of everything that determined the time and place into which you arrived, how it felt, what it meant, what was required.
 
 
They weren't thinking about you, they were responding for better or worse to their own arrival, development and history. They were doing the best they could in respect of their lives, hopes, disappointments, purposes, expectations, ambitions. They were responding to their own patterns of experience.
 
 
 
No-one is free from parents, biological sequence is inevitable. The implications are huge: person, purpose, life-plan, predisposition, preferences: all these come from somewhere, and the point of immediate entry is birth, that biological event in respect of which we exchange muscular contractions for emotional obligations.
 
 
Take a short test:
 
Pay attention to your life:
 
List your Mom's strongest (not best) character traits. On a scale of one to ten, rate her frequency of performing these. On a scale of one to ten do this for yourself.
 
List your Dad's strongest (not best) character traits. On a scale of one to ten, rate his frequency of performing these. On a scale of one to ten, do this for yourself.
 
 
 
Do this exercise for one mere week, thirty minutes a day, and I guarantee life-changes.
 
One's life is a pattern of meaning, and alas, this word is an empty one, unless it's filled with action. If you do something with your life other than look for superficial gratification, necessary survival, short-term joy, fun-filled distraction, your life will feel at first to be alien, then large, becoming properly purposeful.
 
Whereas entertainment is an industry, experiencing music is not really an economic activity. Music, itself, is a reflection of living. If you take a few moments to hear your life playing, the chords of your soul, the melody of your intent, you will find possibility of cadence, impertinence of melody, beauty of composition.
 
 
The pattern into which you are born is a music, playing at that time. Few feel able to change the music, some can interpret, most simply perform, leaders conduct.
 
However, the more you bring your own music into focus, the more the score changes.
 
 
 
Living one's life is like resonating within a particular chord, or cadence. You just keep on adding, either the same, or one sharp, or flat, or seventh, or minor, while your kids are adding on another semi-quaver. It's true that technology is changing extremely rapidly, yet emotions don't change as such, they merely vary the chord.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What we see is who we are, what we do is what we want, what we feel is our direction.
 
We have an instrument to play within our soul: all the notes that were given to us on arrival are ours, and the composition, counter-point and harmony are ours to create.
 


 
 
 
Avoiding a moral imperative of simplistic obedience, we will find a dilemma of authenticity.
 
What an amazing sequence of steps to gain mere movement towards truth...
 
Harmony of experience may seem difficult to achieve.
 
 
Way too much of humanity is trapped in rebellion, cruelty: destructive patterns that seem inescapable.
 
 
 

 

One of the best metaphosr of music is relief. Dissonance disappears when notes and chords connect. The soul feels it.
 

When you're free to move, in your soul and spirit, and your connection to the material world is known for what it is, a temporal connection, you can do what you want within the recognition that affords music an eternal appreciation.

One note played meaningfully can be utterly liberating...

Thus also, one life.


 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 


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