I remember reading (in Sophie's World) the part where her philosopher friend reminds her not to lose the ability to be amazed by things. He mentions waking up to the fact that we are on a planet in the middle of "outer" space, and that we are sentient and so can reflect on it, except that people don't. Doctor Who echoes these sentiments when he tells Rose he can feel the Earth spin beneath him. The same idea is repeated in a different way in Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works when he writes about the "everyday miracles" performed by the human mind. He quotes Confucius: "A common man marvels at uncommon things: a wise man marvels at the commonplace." Now, is that enough intellectual backing? I get a lot of flak from people at work for using superlatives all the time; they think it's charmingly naive of me or something. It's not. I am in the world and this is my response: amazement.
Take this, as a random example of why. On Monday, I was travelling home for the midwinter festival (bring back the old festivals! by the way) and had time to think. I had just come through the futuristically refurbished Kings X, and I was sitting on a vehicle moving at great speed along a steel rail linking that surreal beast of a city which is London to my old home town. I was listening on these great Bose headphones I have to a digital reproduction of some Romanian gypsy musicians playing cymbalom, accordion and, over this, a seductively wailed melody line full of joy and real swagger. This was on CD not MP3 so it felt as if they were there in the same room. (Remember CDs?) I could stretch my legs out (on a cheap first class ticket) - it was bliss. And that was even before the wine hit. For the light effects, see below.
Be amazed again. It's worth it.
3 comments:
Going off slightly at a tangent, I was listening to Astral Weeks the other day and I was stopped in my tracks. Amazed only goes part-way to doing it justice. When Van sings:
"Marching with the soldier boy behind
He's much older now with hat on drinking wine"
it's astonishing that someone can produce that sound with only their voice and some passion. I then played the song over and over about ten times in a row. It's a muso thing i guess. It would only be half a life, not enjoying music in this way - being so endlessly moved and rewarded.
I agree. Van, unfortunately, got so into the roar of his own voice (think: the Cowardly Lion) that the rest of his career - bar some beautiful stuff on Moondance - is almost unlistenable! But Astral Weeks is superb and shame on Q for letting it drop out of the Top 100. They should have cooked the books.
I don't know anything much about the pre-Socratics, Spyda, but I guess that wonder is an element of all human philosophy outside the analytic tradition. Even inside it, you get the sense that some philosophers never lost this response to the world e.g. Hume, Wittgenstein, and Pascal, of course.
It needn't lead to theism, unless you want it to.
Not sure you can generalise about 'the rest of his career' there are lots of other good albums as well as Astral Weeks. Veedon Fleece is excellent. I'll burn you a copy if you don't have it! Phew. I have a hangover today...
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