Making room
~If you want room for yourself, you must also make room for others
~Exclude no one. Only exclude bad behavior.
~Just saw a cute little film "Little Secrets" on BYUTV. Yes, Brigham Young University TV. Yes, rather whitewashed, but I liked it and it reminded me of my own childhood and the kind of neighborhood I lived in and the people that were around me. Mine also included Japanese people and a few Black folk too. But we all blended together and were basically on the same wavelength in terms of civility, sharing a basic set of moral values in terms of being good, kind, and helpful people.
So, anyway, during this movie the young 14 yr old girl is a violin prodigy aspiring to play with a symphony. In the meantime, we see a busker playing a violin playing a common tune. Then she plays a classical piece and it's beautiful and wonderful. Lots of people threw money into the busker's violin case. Then, much later on, she needed some funds for a good cause and so went busking herself with her violin.
Again, she played a classical piece. But this time I thought about how you don't hear that kind of music much because it is not in everyday life like it was in this film. And then I thought about how this music and all the arts are considered "high culture" and how it's reserved for the hoity-toity instead of being part of common culture.
That's when it struck me that that should not be the case. That classical music should be accessible to all regardless of income or station in life. I thought it quite refreshing to see someone in common dress playing such wonderful music on the street in public, and yes it IS wonderful music, tho not at the exclusion of all others, but rather, as another wonderful part of this tapestry of life.
We don't have to like all parts of it, but that doesn't mean we should exclude them from the world unless we are willing to exclude what we like as well.
In other words, if no one gives any room to anyone else, then there won't be room for us either. It is only by being inclusive, by giving others the room to exist that there can be room in others for us too. The only thing we exclude is bad behavior.
~Exclude no one. Only exclude bad behavior.
~Just saw a cute little film "Little Secrets" on BYUTV. Yes, Brigham Young University TV. Yes, rather whitewashed, but I liked it and it reminded me of my own childhood and the kind of neighborhood I lived in and the people that were around me. Mine also included Japanese people and a few Black folk too. But we all blended together and were basically on the same wavelength in terms of civility, sharing a basic set of moral values in terms of being good, kind, and helpful people.
So, anyway, during this movie the young 14 yr old girl is a violin prodigy aspiring to play with a symphony. In the meantime, we see a busker playing a violin playing a common tune. Then she plays a classical piece and it's beautiful and wonderful. Lots of people threw money into the busker's violin case. Then, much later on, she needed some funds for a good cause and so went busking herself with her violin.
Again, she played a classical piece. But this time I thought about how you don't hear that kind of music much because it is not in everyday life like it was in this film. And then I thought about how this music and all the arts are considered "high culture" and how it's reserved for the hoity-toity instead of being part of common culture.
That's when it struck me that that should not be the case. That classical music should be accessible to all regardless of income or station in life. I thought it quite refreshing to see someone in common dress playing such wonderful music on the street in public, and yes it IS wonderful music, tho not at the exclusion of all others, but rather, as another wonderful part of this tapestry of life.
We don't have to like all parts of it, but that doesn't mean we should exclude them from the world unless we are willing to exclude what we like as well.
In other words, if no one gives any room to anyone else, then there won't be room for us either. It is only by being inclusive, by giving others the room to exist that there can be room in others for us too. The only thing we exclude is bad behavior.
posted by NeoLotus at 2:13 AM
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