Depression and Anxiety

...are signals trying to tell you something: you're a human being with unmet needs, and we're searching for fulfillment and happiness in entirely the wrong way..  A TED talk by Johann Hari that struck me as simple but true.

Outer Wilds Reprise

This is the extended version of the short song I posted a few days ago.  Its refrain is constantly going through my head.  Perhaps it's the simplicity itself that makes the music so evocative.  I couldn't care less about the video game from which it came; whatever the source, I'm happy to find a composition that's so appealing. 

I do like the graphic art with those little campfires all alone in the cosmos.  The humble origins from whence we all came.  Once in a while we're forced to return to those humble beginnings and we have to start over.  In some ways, that's where I feel we are -- this laborious civilization we've built doesn't work so well.

For me, I'm going back to square one: happy just to be alive, woven into the great mystery, this vast panorama of existence in which we all share. 

14.3 Billion Years

 It's been a lonely ride these 14.3 billion years.  I hope things improve from here on in -- I almost said "out" but I think I'd rather go "in" than further out at this point. 

May our beautiful blue planet and anyone with half a heart come along for the ride.  Don't give up hope -- ultimately the journey will make you whole.  

Universe, you're a love song after all.

(Music composed by Andrew Prahlow for the video game, Outer Wilds.)

Clair de lune

 The famous piano composition by Debussy transposed onto the guitar and performed by Roxane Elfasci.  I get the sense that she's lived with this piece of music for a very long time, probably since childhood.  Atmospheric.

 

Being Grateful

We think we're so sophisticated and smart but we don't know diddly compared to these people.  There's nothing to add; their own statements are simple, elegant, and true.  They lack for material possessions but not for understanding or happiness.

I had the same experience on one of my visits to India.  I realized I was picking up the impression that the village people I met, or farmers, were actually happier than people back in the States.  Why are we so superficially smart and yet so stupid about what really matters?

 

John Doe #24

 A song by Mary Chapin Carpenter that popped into my head today.  Someone pondering the vagaries of existence through the medium of the popular song.

Naan Yen

This song was my introduction to the great A R Rahman.  I find the strictly western instrumentation an interesting choice for this production by Coke Studio, which is based in Pakistan.  The song apparently portrays a person musing about why they were even born, and wondering what their fate might be.  What struck me on my initial listen, and what I still find striking today, is the utter lack of affectation with which Rahman sings.  There are no stage ploys, no grandiose gestures.  Just someone singing from the heart.  He's simply telling a story and asking a genuine, if existential, question.  I find that both moving and inspiring.  More to come from him.

 

Praying the Game

For some reason, the previous post about Purcell reminded me of this song, perhaps because of the orchestration.  One of the things I always admired about Pete Townshend was the way he could question his own faith.  This song is about the hypocrisy of prayer.

Now, that's a loaded statement -- but what Townshend is talking about is one's own hypocrisy -- using prayer, or using God, really, to avoid pain, most probably to avoid the consequences of one's own actions.  Wiggling like a worm on the hook.  Or perhaps as a subtle attempt to manipulate the outcome one desires.  As though one could cheat the Universe.  The Buddha reputedly said (in the vernacular), "Nobody gets away with anything."

It's hard to look within and see one's own hypocrisy, one's own lack of integrity, but we all have moments or entire areas of our lives where we're not up to snuff.  We talk a good game but we don't live it.  I'm as guilty as anyone.  Really, the only way out of hypocrisy is to be able to recognize and face it in yourself.  Strangely enough, facing one's own weaknesses and owning up to them instead of weaseling out, is real strength.  That's real character, despite what the world appears to say.

So Townshend is undercutting the pose of piety here -- his own pose -- or yours and mine, as the case may be.  

I find the honesty of facing one's own failings refreshing.  As long as you can do that, there is still hope....and there's a good Sunday morning sermon for you.

Fantasia Upon One Note

 Englishman Henry Purcell wrote this famous piece of music in the summer of 1680, when he was a mere twenty years old.  I understand that fantasies were rather a somber form.  But what I love about this composition happens in the latter part when a suddenly sunny burst of melody breaks through, then resolves back into the original theme.  To me, that sunburst is the irrepressible twenty-year old breaking out in Henry Purcell, because, after all, it was summer!

This is not my favorite performance of this piece.  That would be a version by the London Chamber Orchestra but I can't find it on youtube.  What I appreciate about this one is how the visual allows you to follow all the different variations that appear and disappear in this luminous piece of music.  

There is a charming mystical idea that Creation began as an original note sung into existence from who knows where, and that all of evolution thereafter is a set of variations upon that original theme.  Purcell's piece of music is like a playful meditation upon this idea, of which he presumably was aware.  Enjoy!