The year is finally ending and promisses for the new year must be made. I could make a list of things here. I could explain the reasons and drives for each of these promisses but i learned a long ago that promisses are only made to be broken. If it’s something you really want there’s no need for promisses. Maybe promisses are made for things you don’t want to do but you must, like diets. Maybe promisses are made for things you have no control of and so you shout out this idea hoping maybe the universe goes your way and decides it all, like when you promisse you will get rich. There are also honest promisses to. Once i did promisse i would stop smoking and i really did. These days i feel i’m much less preoccupied about things like promisses. I don’t get disappointed if someone breaks a promisse. I don’t think less of people who can’t keep their new year’s promisses. The truth about a promisse it this: It’s a trap you get your self in. If you achieve your goal it makes no difference what so ever. If you don’t it makes you believe you lost something. Something you never had at first place is now lost and the only thing you get on this deal is the lower trust on your self you end up with. So the only thing i decided to promisse for next year: I will do my best! That’s something i can live with! Happy new year!
I had an incredible chance of getting really close to music in it’s most intimate way. In june of 2009 i was invited to make a documentary feature about the most important music festival of Latin America. Campos do Jordão Winter festival. It was an amazing experience and i still ahve good friends i made there. Great talents. People you pay big bucks to listen to in concert halls around the world. To get intimate with this kind of people is fascinating because they usually use their instruments to comunicate their emotions and not their words. But they are so passionate about what they do they can’t hide anything. They are some of the most generous people i ever met when the subject is music. About other subjects they are not very articulated. Many have family issues and most devoted their entire lives to music. When you think about a rock star you can understand where they get their share and why do they give up so much to do that but concert music takes a little more time to understand. It’s not about fame. Most of them are not known. It’s not about money because it doesn’t pay that much. It’s not about travelling all over because they get stuck in their hotel rooms studying all the time. So what is there for concert musicians to give up their lives and follow their passion for music? An important italian harpist told me something about music: “A painting you see, a sculpture you see, but if i play for you (she play a couple notes) where is it? Its gone”. That’s a big truth about music. When a painter is working he is putting his inspiration on the canvas and we will see it later on. Music is happening right there. You can grasp creation. It’s always in movement as in the words of T.S. Eliot’s “The Dry Salvages”: “…but you are the music
while the music lasts.”. When it stops it’s gone. So it is as real as the present. As solid as creation can get. That’s why it is the closest we can get to the divine. To the spirit. That’s why these sweet folks gave up everything else. Because every time they play the can witness it. So they follow the music, the movement it creates. Transforming empty rooms in pure emotion and leaving it as empty as before. That’s such a faithful portrait of life it should be considered the ultimate art. A channel to the divine. If you’re not sure about it listen to the ninth symphony. But do it live. Some musicians don have CDs at home because they say that’s not music but only a shadow of it. As the painting hanging on a wall.
I heard many times before that i should live the present. I’m not sure the real reason people say that but i do have some thinking on this matter. Firstly the obvious idea: we live the present. We don’t live the past or the future instead we use past and future to project our selves. Projecting for the future helps creating it. More traditional people believe it to be called planning and strategy. More advanced ideas as the teories from quantum physicists support that you really create your future in your mind. The physical result is actually controlled by your mind’s projection of it. So you can project for the future as a benefit. But what about the past? This one should be easier to figure out because it is already there. It’s all written. Even so it can be more deceptive than the mysterious future. If you live your present according to your future you will be creating. If you live your present according to your past you will be stuck in it. The past is nothing more than a giant series of information coming from everywhere including our own journeys. When you look at it you start to use your memory. So far so good. It’s important to learn but we learn from mistakes and many times mistakes hurts us. So this information is not for free. It comes with a lot of things we don’t want or need to access. That’s where we create our defenses. That’s where we learn to fear. The big question is: How to get this information without the pain? People gotta be brave and take it? Even so the result is not that great. You learn to be afraid of heights but the feeling that comes with it can be as dangerous as heights depending on the situation. I’m using a simplistic example here. Think about other things we learn. We develop Karmas. We keep doing the same mistakes. That way we are repeating a projection for the past. The fat guy repeats his eating everyday. The dumb girl keeps choosing the wrong guys. We do to our kids the same things our parents did to us. The most creative we can be is to do the opposite. But getting free from this legacy and trying something new is something very uncommon. I think that’s nothing we can do about it. But i also think if we have this in mind we can do much more by trying. And the best way to try it is to focus on the present. Because life is in the present. The future is a possibility and the past is a big trap. I believe the present is a shadow of our souls. The past and the future are shadows of our present. Present= Life.
The eternal solitude of the restless Mind 