The music that awaits us

When we ask: "how are you?" to someone who is well, it happens to be answered: "I am as pope", meaning "I am well as a pope". It's curious. Nobody ever replies: "I'm as president", as minister or undersecretary, as if to imply that these categories, at least on paper, fare worse than a pontiff, and this does not prove in favor of the clergy, a category certainly with its beautiful headaches. . I guess at this moment not even the pope is as pope, let alone us mere mortals.

A year ago we played on the balconies and told each other «Everything will be fine», while today those written have disappeared, even from hearts. Obviously we no longer believe it. So I wonder what we believe in, as long as we believe in something or someone.
I have atheist friends who have often asked me how do I believe in a higher entity (Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, for example). I have always replied by borrowing a fantastic dialogue taken from the (Christmas) film "Santa Claus": «Seeing is not believing; to believe is to see ". Have you ever seen a million euros? Neither do I, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Many other things I will never see, yet I believe in their existence. I trust what I want to believe or the testimonies of those who say they have seen them, and can confirm (in a more or less scientific way) their existence.

Bacteria, viruses, for example, electrons, photons, the bonds between people, the unconscious and the subconscious, the diversification of neuronal cells ... There are incalculable things that I will never see and never know with absolute certainty, but life teaches me that many of them exist and operate inside and outside of me. I too work inside and outside of myself; more inside than outside. I think my life is 10 percent (maybe less) what happens to me, and 90 percent my reaction to it.

But if 90 percent depends on me, then I should be a true masterpiece, a star, a beacon that shines beyond mine, the way of many other people. Maybe I can't really stay as pope, but I can start being undersecretary, just by reacting differently. Some days it would be enough for me to be a musician, a category commonly believed to be cheerful. How many times have they told me: "But you play so much, what do you care?". I play, so I shouldn't give a damn about the world to live happy h / 24? Is this what people think of me (as well as of the pope)?
Ask Luigi Tenco how he was, or Mozart, or Whitney Houston… Beliefs don't matter, only what I believe about myself counts. Music can perhaps help me feel better, especially the music I choose and listen to for the sake of speaking to my soul and telling it something intelligent, giving it a beautiful emotion. I don't know if pope or president are much better off than me.

With great power comes great responsibility. Our hatred or our outbursts towards these offices often conceal the unacknowledged anger towards ourselves and towards our inability to take our life in hand to make it become the masterpiece it would like to be. We blame others if we fail to realize ourselves, so if it doesn't "go well" we will elegantly get out of it by looking like the sages who told you so. The first step towards our realization is to recognize ourselves as solely responsible for ourselves, for our actions and above all for our omissions. There is a symphony that awaits each of us, but it demands discipline, determination, perseverance and faith.
It exists even if we don't see it yet. To believe is to see.

Mauro Tabasso
NP May 2021