The Music of Desire

[yezida]

[The following is from a larger current project of mine, on tracing the contours of Desire]

Post dinner and wine in a Los Angeles living room, I listened to some works in progress by pianist Dana Reason. She sat at the holiday card covered piano with pages and pages of scores in front of her and played. I was startled by the brilliance of both the

Comments

[alfrecht]

I'm reminded of one of my favorite Joseph Campbell quotes: "As you go through life, following your own path, pigeons will shit on you. Don't bother to brush it off."

It's unfortunate that this quote of his is not as widespread as ones like "Follow your bliss (and the money will come)"; in my experience, that's not the case, and the way the latter statement can be used and twisted into a kind of self-pleasing and privileged statement can lead all sorts of not-very-positive places...

But, following desire and going off course, or following one's own path but being shat on...I think these are more realistic formulations of what actually can and does happen to most folks who attempt to do such things.

[I'm also reminded of what Quincy Jones said at a commencement ceremony I was at in Seattle in '08, about when he and Ray Charles were younger and sharing a room in Seattle--every day, they said the affirmation "Not one ounce of my self-respect is based upon anyone else's acceptance of me." It sounds like this type of motive is a

[elissa_carey]

That's how I personally separate the driving force to "do" something from the might-have-beens, hobbies, or whims: what are you willing to sacrifice, what are you willing to put up with, in pursuit of your desire? Do you want it badly enough to risk the pigeon poop (to borrow your and Campbell's analogy)? This is completely separate from whether or not a particular desire is an objectively good thing, of course. But as long as we're speaking solely of the drive to create art (in its many forms) or help others, it really does come down to just how much you're willing to give up in order to achieve your goals.

[alfrecht]

Perhaps it isn't so much "what one is willing to give up" (or, the oft-used/misused synonym for "give up," sacrifice) as it is how one's priorities are re-oriented in relation to reaching for that higher goal. What others might see as bird droppings are in fact just the window dressing (icky though the sound of that might be) when one actually wants to be a bird enthusiast...!?!

It's the difference between "sacrifice" as "giving up" and "sacrifice" in the original sense, i.e. "to make holy" (sacra + facio, facere)--it isn't that one is giving up on cleanliness in braving the bird bombs, it's that one is making the endurance of bird bombs a devotional calling.

Anyway...!?! ;)

[contentlove]

So far , so good ;)

I seem unwilling to not surprise myself. Damned uncomfortable at times. Can't be helped.

[chelidon]

This reminds me, oddly enough, of a series of well-produced and thought-provoking patient safety videos I viewed recently. One of the statements that was made, in the context of a discussion and exploration of how we can reinvent medical culture in ways which will improve outcomes and reduce preventable errors, was "we have forgotten to be afraid

[swansister]

This speaks to me of surrendering to the unknown, falling, falling and giving birth to creation or Desire as you call it.

This truly speaks to me,

S~