What are we missing every day…








No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written,with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.






In spite of the fact that he used his outstanding ability to the full and performed some of the most intricate music ever written, only a few people even noticed the maestro and even fewer stopped to listen. The article notes:


Journalist Gene Weingarten was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his outstanding and thought provoking analysis of the experiment. Weingarten discusses the ramifications of Bell’s subway experience. What role does context play in our artistic perceptions? To what degree is our perception of beauty influenced by our mindset at the particular time we perceive it? He notes:

It’s an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

Read the full article and see some clips here: Pearls Before Breakfast

Is this violinist really that much better than any other; if his music can not snap people out of their daily trance? If he is, what other things do we miss every day as we rush about our lives, full of seemingly important things that need to be done.

There are diamonds in the rough, everywhere, if you just take a while to take a closer look. And maybe to hear the truth, you just need to stop for a moment; close your eyes and really listen.


One thought on “What are we missing every day…

  1. People have forgotten how to live in the moment; being present in the beauty and miracles of each moment we draw breath. Drawing breath is a miracle. People have so much going on in their heads that they fail to see the blessings all around them and to feel gratitude for everything in their lives – both small and large. It is only by seeing the beauty in the small things in life that we can really appreciate the big things that happen.
    Also let us learn from our children, they are one of our greatest teachers. Allow our children to daydream and take in all their surroundings for they have much to teach us about the magnificence of LIFE!

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