“We are all many persons. Some of these people we know and others we don’t-only someone else knows them. Some of these poeple we like and some of them we don’t like… All of this is music; it is the music of our lives if we could only stop and listen. Music doesn’t have any meaning; you can’t explain it . Eating a meal doesn’t have any meaning, either, but if there’s no eating there’s no life, and if we don’t hear music we can’t dance. This is our practice-to eat our meals and clean up; to dance to the music of our lives, each one in our own way, and then die when it’s time.”
– Norman Fischer
Great quote! It really gave me much to think about. I’m not certain what the author meant?…but to me it said we all have a “tune” or a “path” that is uniquely our own, and how we play it out, and follow, it is our destiny. Thanks for sharing. Oh…and Gabriel is such an adorable “cutie” too. I love the picture! 🙂
Oh MY! How cute is he? The best part is from a distance he totally looks like he’s dancing… just jamming to his own music in his little toddler head. SO CUTE!
This is by far the best picture i’ve seen in your journal- and i’ve been visiting for a long time! i loved the quote too. Thanks for sharing 🙂
There is something irresistible about toddlers’ necks [yes, also hand and feets, okay]. I think it’s the proportion to their head, their body…so sweet and cute. It always makes me cuddle them. Do I sound very weird? He.
“We are all many persons.” This is deeply true. The word “person” is derived from the Latin “per sona”, which literally means, “the thing through which the sound (sona) goes through (per).” This in turn is derived from the Greek “prosopon”, which means “mask” — the masks that Greek dramatists wore had these little flared-out, mini-megaphone-like lips, which served to amplify one’s voice so that the audience could hear better. The thing through which the sound goes through.
So a “person” is a mask. This is not a degradation of our language — it is a facet of what we really do mean to say when we say “person,” but one which is often ignored. Because it raises the sticker question of, “What then, is behind the mask?” There is too much to go into here, but I will say this: this past summer my mother asked me what I thought awakening “really” was. I said I can’t say it in words, but when you realize you were never actually born, you can see that you will never die. And you “wake up” to find out who you really are.
Your “person” is a mask. It isn’t real.
Do you see it? Please tell me if you do.
Thank you for that fantastic quote.
My mother passed away a little over a week ago. I still feel as though she had many more meals to eat in her own way, but what do I know?
I have five half-brothers and a half-sister. We all have our own perceptions of who she was, and she had her own perception of who she was. I learn more about her everyday. Even now.
i really like that quote. it simplifies everything doesn’t it?
I love the photo and the quote too. Once again, thanks for sharing!
BBB
I think it means, don’t unnecessarily complicate your life; accept all your parts and that they make a whole that is to be embraced; that your music is yours because of your parts and nobody else’s; that if there’s no eating, there’s no life, and no dancing without music; that life is is so simple, and beautiful in its simplicity, when you come right down to it.
Andrea, I’ve been reading your journal a while now, but this is my first reply (I almost typed “response” but I respond every time). I just want to say that I learn something every time I visit, from you and from the others that are around you. Your photography is lovely. I have aspirations to grow creatively and coming here is like filling a well, a drop at a time, for me. Thank you.
Artie,
I really really love what you wrote here.
Such a new way of looking at our identity, our ‘person’
and remembering that we are not really that thing.
It is more fluid than that, more infinite and less finite.
Maybe we as “persons” are simply the mini-megaphone
that life pours through. We are little speakers for the
spirit that exists in all of us and outside of all of us.
that’s what your words made me think about..
a