I am not sure, but I think Time has become a rushing thing and there is never, ever enough of it. We have too many distractions, and few interests.
We have too many distractions and few interests.
There is nothing to feed the soul.
We do not think, and certainly do not write, in a manner that will teach us the way of savoring ourselves or our lives or our time here or anywhere.
This is a tragedy, a real and personal tragedy for human beings; the loss of time, of savoring, is shattering meaning and that is turning us insane. We notice nothing that matters. We read maps and focus only on destinations and never on the infinite possibilities of the moment we are in. The possibilities are lost. The questions come of stumbling over new things to see and wonder about ~ all that is lost, every minute, every day, for all of us.
This must be a phase of maturation. The longest-lived cultures cherish clarity and clean lines and cleanliness and hot baths and simple rules and simple foods and humility and complex thought.
Yet, we are oh, so fortunate in this time. We have access to any field of study, to conversation with those from other cultures, to research and philosophy created by the finest minds. But our cultures, our popular cultures, do not prepare us for contemplation.
They prepare us for consumption.
Or am I wrong.
I could be wrong.
The pleasures of in-depth learning, of every kind of music, exposure to every nuance of thought, are available to us.
Perhaps that is why there is less emphasis on beauty in our surroundings. In this time, the weightiest value is us as we explore and pleasure the brain.
At bottom, that is what we all are doing ~ we all of every race and generation.
Listen to the music of the young. It is raw and honest about the emotional reality of sex appeal and what is beauty and what matters and women declaring what matters to them in this world where they are seen as what matters but not for themselves.
I love it.
I love comparing the music from times and cultures and generations.
It shapes us and reveals us to ourselves and pushes us on and tells us where we've been. Even in those old churches I love so much, the pipe organs are an amazing portion of the reality of what went on there.
For this reason, because it somehow sums "human" up for me, I love Halleluiah the way kd lang sings it.
I love that we can go online and see the masterpieces, the paintings in the flash of an eye and then, follow those down to the core of the thing.
So, in a way we are the most fortunate generation.
We all are like the Fool on the Hill, in a way. Amazed at all of it, just amazed.
Cedar