Selective Hearing

I’ve spent much time recently reflecting on my last post, “Brief Rebirth,” and our collective need for more frequent spiritual renewal and emotional rebirth. In a society filled with non-stop news, tweets, and an endless supply of divisiveness, our choice of “input” matters. Thanks to technology that brought many improvements, we can also click one button and be directed to bad news, hateful speech, and a variety of information that drains our souls and inevitably turns us against one another. The bad will remain available to us, but so will art.

Several days ago I heard Mozart’s Requiem Mass in the Basilica of Saint James in Old Town Prague. Afterword, I compared what I thought of mankind and others around me with my feelings after reading the day’s news. As Mozart washed over my soul, I felt the beauty of mankind, the goodness of others, and sat in awe as a young woman in front of me signed the Requiem to the deaf girl next to her. At that moment I was incapable of feeling divisiveness, anger, or fear. The music and the art around me had overpowered those emotions and replaced them with those I aspire to experience constantly. Don’t we all long to feel that way more often?

While searching for quotes that might express my feelings more eloquently, I read inspiring words by Beethoven, Plato, Shakespeare, and many others. I settled on Bono who said, “Music can change the world because it can change people.” I believe it and all art can, even if for just a moment. When we choose music and art over tweets and bad news, we fill ourselves with fuel that empowers and inspires us to make the world better. Spend a day or a week choosing art and music over tweets and links, and I assure you, the world will suddenly appear infinitely more wonderful.