Brain Food #523
Philip Glass and the meaning of life
Thoughts of the day
In a year where time seems to have stopped, there is a sweet irony hiding in our preoccupation with it, how the past, present, and future are merging into one.
Renowned composer Philip Glass -whose work contains a certain amount of timelessness- talks of the importance of this interconnectivity, and of our responsibility to maintain a sense of continuity between the three facets of time, not through the work we do in itself, but through the connections it establishes with others.
“I’ve thought of the lineage of music that goes way into the past and the future of music, which we hope will go into the future, and where does my life fit into that? I think just expressing it that way: What is the meaning of an artist’s life? Or of anybody’s life? A doctor’s life, a teacher’s life, or a radio interviewer’s life — what is the meaning of that? I’m more and more coming to the idea that it’s the lineage and the connection to the past and the connection to the future — that is the real connection. Everything else, I think, is kind of imaginary. Is there a heaven that is waiting for us or some afterlife of some kind? We have no idea. In fact, it’s not even important.
The important thing is how [you are] connected to the past. Does that represent not only continuity, but does it bring us closer to something that’s richer, that’s more interesting? What have we brought to the world and what do we leave behind us and what does the future have for us? The future … is in our children. It’s in our friends. It’s in our work. It’s all around us.”
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