I can’t forget a post I saw from a group member the other day about the violinist who was playing in a DC Metro Station. He played for 45 minutes with 2000 people who passed on their way to work and no one was paying any attention to his music, or at least very few. The crux of the story was this was a world-renowned violinist who had filled a concert hall two days earlier in Boston with an audience who had paid $100 each to hear him play. Not only that in the Metro he was playing one of Bach’s most intricate pieces ever written on a violin worth upwards of $3.5 million dollars. Go figure!

One other thing I would like to mention here were the children who were drawn to stop to hear this violinist’s music. Their parents pulled them along in their haste with the children looking back in fascination but no way to get their parents to let them have a few minutes to watch and listen. What does this mean? The children are the ones who saw the importance of this performance. They were the ones who wanted to take in this wonderful music. But their hurried parents with a focus on getting to work couldn’t, or wouldn’t take the time to allow the children to feast on this wonderful music.

What is the relevance here? What does this say about us as a society? As you all know very well, one of my favorite things to comment about is for people to take time to stop, look, and listen to what is going on around them. Everyone is always in such a hurry to go here, to go there, to do this and that. That is all they focus on and they fail to see really what their goals should be and the real importance of living. Do we need a reset button on us to bring us back down to reality to look hard at where we are going and the intent?

Being artists, we probably have an advantage over others for understanding this and allowing ourselves to be mindful of our surroundings and goings-on. We are more receptive to outside stimuli and don’t miss things are they are flying past. In regards to the children, they haven’t been sucked in yet to the daily chaos most adults are into. It reminds me of a whirlpool that only speeds up and never slows down to let us off the frenzy.

Next time you see a street musician think of this famous violinist. You never know whose music you may have the privilege of hearing.