Being Here Now
Trying to learn how to embrace the whole
When push comes to shove, I am fundamentally a person who values slowness, calmness, and embracing a sense of “non-rushedness”. Give me a good view and I will happily sit there, just looking, for ages.
What am I looking at? Well, everything, I guess. Taking it all in. Rather than narrowing my focus down to something small or specific, I often appreciate seeing the wider view; trying to embrace the whole.
It is an approach, often attributed to introspective introverts like me, which can, at times, baffle others: “Yeah, we’ve seen the view, we’ve taken some photos, let’s move on”.
I enjoy feeling a sense of envelopment - not immersed, switched-off and tuned-out as such, but being surrounded by something bigger. Faced with a wondrous breath-taking vista, I honestly do not feel a need as such to find the answers to any questions of “what is it all for” or “where did it all come from” - a little beyond my remit, and in truth, those existential questions are not what drives me. What does interest me is remembering that I feel most alive, engaged and connected when I am able to be there, fully.
You sometimes hear people talk about this as “being present”. Whilst I don’t mind this phrase per se, I think I prefer to think of it as “being here now”.
Extrapolating this mindset towards my approach to artistry and creativity, I would not call it a repudiation of detail; sometimes, I really love exploring the nitty gritty details of something, and as we know, I am - and maybe you are, too - a geek. Nor is it centred around a view which favours zero examination of anything at all, instead just letting it all “wash over us”.
Instead, I feel we would all benefit by moving away from setting seemingly everything up as binary opposites up against each other. Doing so is exhausting, and I would argue fundamentally un-creative. Whilst favoured by the money-men (which perhaps tell its own story), the box-ification of creative practice is the least helpful thing we can do. In general, I believe the one thing the world could do with more of at the moment, is nuance.
However, there is a significant barrier to all of this: we are terrible at it.
I stated earlier: “I value slowness, calmness and embracing a sense of non-rushedness”. Whilst this is true, I am so very bad at remembering this, let alone at actually doing it. I am fundamentally a severe hypocrite of the highest order, and you should not take any advice from me about any of this! (please keep reading & subscribing, though).
The path to recovery from this is long, winding and almost certainly fruitless; primarily because I am already set up to fail. Modern life does not want us to embrace this, and we all know why. We all know the answer to the challenge I am laying out is that everything has to be quickly and easily digestible to satiate our device-fuelled existence, which has sapped our ability not just to concentrate, but to enjoy that sense of being where we are, in this moment, now.
And why? - because measured productivity is king. If you can put a metric on it, you can place a prescribed value on it, and what we are dealing with here, at its heart, is in-valuable, in the traditional sense of the word: something by which value is not easily attributable.
The ripostes rings in my ears before I have even clicked ‘publish’. Yes, I know we have to live in and exist in the system in which we find ourselves. Yes, it is unfair. No, it should not be like this, but “we are where we are”, and fighting against it is unrealistic and pointless. Yes, this has all been a bit wishy-washy, liberally-minded, creative-speak.
But somewhere along the line, we all have to engage with the question: what is it all for? Engaging with the question is not the same as answering it, and like all good wishy-washy creative-speak articles, this one does not seek to provide a solid, identifiable, measurable answer…because there isn’t one. At least, not in a way which can be monetised (probably the worst word of the twenty-first century).
It is in the engaging process that we find the truly good stuff. An answer usually leads us to a dead-end; a full-stop; the culmination of the quest. Calling off the search.
I am not in it for that. I never want to “arrive”.
Which is why I keep on banging on about what it is all for. For me, it is More Than Background Music. Because it was never meant for that, and it never will be.
Great piece, Simeon. This is the paradox, isn't it? I've re-stacked your words on productivity: they can't be improved upon. I'm an old man now, have had a good life and *still* at this age (73) cannot always turn off the productivity button. Perhaps this is one's life work: to disengage from the "forces" (inadequate word, too simplistic) that cause us to *strive*. To create is beautiful; striving sucks the beauty out of it.
I have had a lot of fun running your words through my head since reading them. I think I have finally concluded that we profoundly agree by wholly different means, which demonstrates your anti-boxification stand (if I may offer a silly improvement on your lovely word).
At first, I thought we were very different humans indeed. I am 70, but have never been a person to sit and look at the view for ages. I don't rush, but I move. I try hard to put motion, and not just emotion, into my playing. I love to move. I even like feeling physically powerful, or as powerful as a 5'1" small person can. When I see a view, I want to walk through it, see it from every part, from the inside.
But we are not different - we are just embracing non-rushedness and our surroundings differently. I am being there by moving, you by stillness. These are not binary opposites, simply different ways of exploring and breathing the space. I love this nuance. Neither measures and counts. I think some of our fake difference might come from your instrument being one of initialising the whole sound with one move, and mine being one of continuous movement (I'm a flutist). Both explore, engage, and never really arrive.
It is fabulous that music can use both ways at the same time. It gives us a place to sit still and stay connected, all while feeling every movement, however minuscule or grand. Thank you for getting me to sit down and think a while!