From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. (dfsiemensjr@juno.com)
Date: Sat Aug 23 2003 - 17:59:57 EDT
On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 21:13:32 +0100 "Iain Strachan"
<iain.strachan.asa@ntlworld.com> writes:
> (in part):
>
> I think this is the very point I'm trying to make. These "outliers"
> have
> the effect of enriching our lives, be it with beautiful music or
> wonderful
> inventions (e.g. would be be having this conversation over the
> internet if
> it were not for the brilliance of the tragic genius Alan Turing?)
>
> But their own lives and their own genes maybe don't have as good a
> chance of
> being propagated as someone who is ordinary and "dull" (which as
> the Larkin
> poem I cited suggests may be a key to happiness).
>
> So, back to the straight religious question; is "genius" a gift
> from God?
> Is it a curse? I regard Mozart's music as a gift for which I'm
> grateful;
> the way it resonates with ones mind (it has been said that Mozart
> has
> soothing and healing properties); and the extraordinary ability it
> has to
> carry you along in its flow - almost as if you were creating the
> music
> inside your own head. But was this "gift" a gift for Mozart
> himself?
The question is composite. Mozart's music is a gift to others, certainly.
To himself? Apparently he enjoyed his facile improvisation, and the fact
that it gave him entree to palaces. Did he enjoy the occasional
obsessiveness? There must have been some positive feeling, unless we
attribute it totally to obsessive compulsion, just more complex than
hand-washing. If pleasurable, how intense vs. negative consequences?
There is no easy answer, and probably great difficulty in trying, at this
late date, to disentangle the many factors. Consider also whether Mozart
would have developed as he did without his father's continual pressure.
What endowments and environmental factors caused his development? To what
extent was it pleasurable as opposed to avoidance of pain?
Is
> there an element here of suffering to bring happiness (salvation) to
> others;
> eg Elgar's music uplifting others, but not himself. Shostakovich
> once said
> that even if they cut off his hands he would continue to write
> music, if
> necessary holding the pen in his mouth. It was his mission; his
> destiny in
> life to compose music; and in doing so, many found temporary release
> from
> the appalling business of living under Stalin. I just wonder if
> there isn't
> something a bit Christ-like in all this.
>
> Iain
As for Elgar, Beethoven was a gift to him, but I don't know if his music
was a gift to himself. It is a gift to us, surely, but would he have
suffered less by not being involved. Shostakovich indicates that he had
to compose. Would trying to break the pattern have produced greater
happiness for him, whatever it did for others? Getting away from Stalin
is another matter.
There are a host of different compulsions, to success in business
(sometimes at all costs), to theft, to family (parents, wife, children,
relatives--sometime mutually exclusive), to power, to self-abnegation,
etc. To what extent can we ascribe Christlikeness to all these
manifestations? What reflects loving a neighbor as oneself, perhaps. But
is this adequate in failure to love God? Finding a similarity in one
factor does not give much evidence for an identity, or even a broad
similarity. However, a gifted writer might produce an analogy here that
would be seen by gifted readers, as Flannery O'Connor did with her
characters. But I have evidence that average readers don't get her point.
Dave
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Aug 23 2003 - 18:06:45 EDT