A WORK IN PROGRESS!
I was sitting here listening to a CD (remember when that meant Certificate of Deposit?) of my daughter singing 'Lo hear the Gentle Lark' at her junior recital in Indiana. It's a beautiful piece when you can close your eyes and have difficulty distinguishing between flute and voice. Even though she is a Music major in Vocal Performance she has this problem singing for her mother and me. She doesn't mind performing on stage in front of others, but she just has a problem singing for family. Go figure. Hell, I'll sing in the shower or car (usually, not at the same time), even though I can't carry a note in a number 10 washtub with a chorus of Alabama bullfrogs singing 'The Hallelujah Chorus" as backup. But even if I had my daughter's pipes, I seriously doubt that I would be singing for others. I would still keep it to myself. My friend over at Jumping Off Cliffs wrote about some common feelings that most of us share, like when you think others might be watching you, you forget, they think you are watching them. What a paranoid world we inhabit.
I suppose one of the underlying causes of our paranoia might be our innate fear of rejection. Our fear of rejection keeps us from sharing our gifts with others. Of course, this is not a new concept, I mean Cain whacked Able because he just thought God had rejected him. If the first poignant story in the Bible is about the power of the rejection, then I figure the ancient Hebrews were on to a meaningful way for us to live our lives in harmony. Of course, they were not the only culture or religion to understand the power of rejection. The worst recorded punishment in many cultures was ostracism, being separated from those you admire, respect, and love. And it is still a strong part of culture. I remember one of my favorite scenes in Catcher in the Rye was when Holden Caulfield was listening to a piano player in a bar. Holden reflects that if could play a piano like that he would go home and only play only for himself.
What gives people that courage to overcome their fear of rejection? To be able to perform their best, knowing that they will always fall short of perfection? Is that why we create these facades we present to the rest of the world? One of the beautiful things about Opera is the ability of the performers to express any emotion in a musical language that is universally understood. Emotions that human beings rarely express to each other openly, even though we can all relate to them. I took Dr Atomix as my user name for this blog from the Opera Dr Atomic, about the founder of the Atom Bomb, Robert Oppenheimer. The night before the Atom Bomb is tested in Los Alamos, 'Oppy' is singing to Gen Groves about how difficult it is for him to lose weight. Here is a man who will eventually be rejected by his country, worried more about his appearance than he is about the means of destruction he is about to deliver to the world. I mean it sounds like a skit from SNL's 'Ricardo's Hideaway', where Billy Crystal says, "You know, Dahlings, it is better to look good, than to be good."
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."
- Miss Piggy
Until next time,
I remain,
Just another paranoid Zoroastrian Cowboy,
Wondering why that guy over there is staring at me...
