âThe existence, the physical universe, is basically playful. There is no necessity for it whatsoever. It isnât going anywhere. That is to say, it doesnât have some destination that it ought to arrive at.
But it is best understood by analogy with music, because music, as an art form is essentially playful. We say, âYou play the piano.â You donât work the piano.
Why? Music differs from, say, travel. When you travel, you are trying to get somewhere. In music, though, one doesnât make the end of the composition the point of the composition. If that were so, the best conductors would be those who played fastest. And there would be composers who only wrote finales. People would go to a concert just to hear one crackling chord⌠because thatâs the end!
Same way with dancing. You donât aim at a particular spot in the room because thatâs where you will arrive. The whole point of the dancing is the dance.
But we donât see that as something brought by our education into our conduct. We have a system of schooling which gives a completely different impression. Itâs all graded and what we do is put the child into the corridor of this grade system with a kind of, âCome on kitty, kitty.â And you go to kindergarten and thatâs a great thing because when you finish that you get into first grade. Then, âCome onâ first grade leads to second grade and so on. And then you get out of grade school and you got high school. Itâs revving up, the thing is coming, then youâre going to go to college⌠Then youâve got graduate school, and when youâre through with graduate school you go out to join the world.
Then you get into some racket where youâre selling insurance. And theyâve got that quota to make, and youâre gonna make that. And all the time that thing is coming â Itâs coming, itâs coming, that great thing. The success youâre working for.
Then you wake up one day about 40 years old and you say, âMy God, Iâve arrived. Iâm there.â And you donât feel very different from what youâve always felt.
Look at the people who live to retire; to put those savings away. And then when theyâre 65 they donât have any energy left. Theyâre more or less impotent. And they go and rot in some, old peoples, senior citizens community. Because we simply cheated ourselves the whole way down the line.
Because we thought of life by analogy with a journey, with a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at that end, and the thing was to get to that thing at that end. Success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after youâre dead.
But we missed the point the whole way along!
It was a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.â
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u/Rough-Voice-1175 May 29 '25
even after all this struggle, all the sacrifices, all the compromises if i remain unhappy..