“No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”
Above is a quote from this fascinating and well written article. It’s a bit long, but well worth the time. The audio portions are a bonus, as well.
Would you have stopped and listened or would you have kept walking? If I were on vacation I probably would have paused for a moment or more to enjoy the music and would have left some money. If I were running late to work, probably not. I don’t judge the people in the article who didn’t listen or even notice the performance, but I applaud those who did.
Have we all become so jaded and harried that we can’t be bothered to stop and appreciate when a rare and beautiful thing is presented to us because we have an appointment to keep? The article points out that only the children, who have no concept of appointments, much less running late for one, consistently wanted to stop and listen, but were dragged away by their parent.
This is just another example of where our lives are preventing us from fully enjoying our lives.
