In the olden days, I
believe Mozart also improvised on piano, but somehow in the last 200 years, the
whole training of Western classical music - they don't read between the lines,
they just read the lines.
Ravi Shankar
This has been a very weird, Jungian, connect the dots, kind
of week. First I had a quote from (of
all things) Pet Semetary rattling around in my head. It was the scene where Jud was discussing
Missy’s suicide with the main character, the doctor, Louis. Jud says, “God sees the truth, but waits.”
Hmmmm…
I googled that phrase because it seemed just a little
too good to be something uttered by a supporting character in a movie. Sure enough, I’m correct. Turns out, that’s
the title of the short story by Leo Tolstoy. So now I’m wikipedia’ing the plot of the
story:
"God Sees the Truth, But Waits"(Russian: "Бог
правду видит, да не скоро скажет", "Bog pravdu vidit da ne skoro skazhet")
is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy first published in 1872. The
story, about a man sent to prison for a murder he didn't commit, takes the form
of a parable of forgiveness. English translations were also published under
titles "The Confessed Crime" and "Exiled to Siberia". The
concept of the story of a man wrongfully accused of murder and banished to
Siberia also appears in one of Tolstoy's previous works, "War and
Peace", during a philosophical discussion among two characters who relate
the story and argue how the protagonist of their story deals with injustice and
fate.
Reading that paragraph was no less than an epiphany to me. “Rita
Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” anyone? A tunnel even plays into the
story….I can’t make this kind of stuff up! I mean, King totally ripped off that
plot right? No offense Mr. King if you
happen to be reading this (my attempt at sarcasm.) I mean they say there are
only 5 basic plots ever written and we all re-form those plots to our liking
but recently tunnels and domes have been showing up as little breadcrumbs
probably telling me as a writer that “It’s okay to NOT reinvent the wheel here.
After all one of your favorite authors didn’t!”
This simmers in my head.
So finally another favorite of mine shows up just in time to
tie this week neatly together: Mr. Ravi
Shankar. I love improvisational baroque kinds of music, especially meditative
ones and find his Ragu Piloo on “West meets East” exquisite. I spin it often in my cd player, but this week
I pulled it out and more than once made myself late to listen to the whole
Raga. I also happen to stumble on his
daughter’s homage to him recently and one of the quotes was what I’ve placed at
the top of the page. ^^
I laughed.
I’m all **about** reading between the lines. It’s what I do
because no matter how rational and pleasing I try to be, I can’t help but do it
because life is more fun this way---and makes more sense. See, to me we are all God’s truth? We all have
a divine purpose here on this earth, and that purpose is glaringly apparent in
our youth as we find our talents. But in
our efforts to “be successful” and be pleasing in other’s eyes, we tend to just
read the lines because we’re programmed that is what we’re supposed to doing.
We create a cycle also because that is what we teach our children to do as
well, to trust our “knowledge” instead of their intuition.
I don’t think it is what we’re supposed to be doing at all?
I think we’re supposed to be improvising.
And that is our truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment