Autumn has begun, perhaps since last week. The morning dawn comes later. The morning sky is cloudy, and there are light rains passing by. Autumn comes when the small path I walk on begins to be covered with leaves, when the forests on both sides of the road begin to have yellow, red, and purple colors, when every morning I have to bring an extra coat to work.
No matter the season, on the road we walk there are always beautiful things, which we often do not notice. Nowadays, in the age of newspapers and information technology, from morning to evening we are easily overwhelmed with so much insecure news, bad things in life. It affects us, makes us become reserved and closed, our perspective becomes narrower, and we live in a hurry.
It is not that we should ignore the suffering around us, but we should not lose sight of other beautiful things that are present in life. It is present in a ripe leaf, a light rainy day, a cup of hot coffee, a close friend, a good song... they can all lift the soul, bring peace.
On the way this morning, try to slow down and listen. Who knows, someone is playing a good song. The colors of the autumn sky are also a very complex and extremely magical symphony, aren't they? Let's listen.
Amidst the rush
On a cold winter morning, at a metro station in Washington DC, a young man with a violin stood and played famous songs by Bach, Schubert, Massenet... for 45 minutes.
During that time, about 2,000 people passed by, most of them on their way to work. And no one seemed to notice his presence standing there.
After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man walked by and noticed a musician standing there playing the violin. He walked slowly, stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried on to make his time.
4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw money into his violin case, and without stopping, she continued walking.
6 minutes:
A young man stood leaning against the wall listening to him, he looked at his watch and then continued walking.
10 minutes:
A child stopped to listen, but his mother hurriedly pulled him on. The child kept stopping to look at the violinist, but his mother pushed him hard, and he had to keep walking, but he kept looking back. And this happened to many other children. And all the parents pulled them, forcing them to walk faster.
45 minutes:
The violinist continued to play without stopping. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a few minutes and then left. About 20 people gave him money, while continuing to walk normally, without stopping. The musician received a total of 32 dollars.
1 hour later:
He stopped playing, and silence returned. No one paid any attention to him. Not a single clap, not a single word of appreciation.
The famous musician with the priceless violin
No one knew that the person was Joshua Bell, one of the most famous violinists in the world.
For more than 45 minutes, he played the most complicated pieces in the repertoire, and the violin he played was worth about 3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell performed at a theater in Boston, the tickets were sold out, each ticket costing 100 dollars. And the organizers were willing to pay 1000 dollars per minute for his talent!
This was the result of an experiment organized by The Washington Post. In this experiment, Joshua Bell had to dress very casually, jeans, a T-shirt, a cap, and play the violin during rush hour, 7:45 am. They chose the L’Enfant Plaza station as their venue, because the metro passengers passing through here were mostly middle-class, professional, and intellectual, most of whom worked with the federal government.
Before the event, the experimenters thought that in Washington DC, one of the most developed cities in the United States for symphonies and classical music, Joshua Bell would attract a large audience to stop and listen, and they were prepared to have to call the police to maintain order.
But only one person recognized Joshua Bell, because three weeks earlier she had gone to see him perform at the Library of Congress, so she recognized him immediately. She put $20 in Joshua Bell's guitar case and introduced herself when he stopped playing.
Slowing Down to Get in Touch with the Beautiful
The Washington Post wrote, the purpose of this experiment was to see: can we recognize and be aware of the good and beautiful things that are present in the midst of our busy lives, in ordinary, everyday circumstances?
And if in life we cannot stop for a moment to listen to the most famous musician in the world, playing the best melodies ever composed, with the most perfect instrument, and if life is so busy that we no longer have time to stop, causing us to become blind to the good and beautiful things, then on the path we take, how many other precious things have we accidentally overlooked and lost?
In today's era, it seems that most of us have quite enough, but there is only one thing that is certain Surely, all of us are very short of time, right?
A few years after that experiment, The Washington Post invited Joshua Bell to return and perform at Union Station in Washington D.C. And this time, the organizers had given advance notice, so the number of people who came to listen to him reached thousands. I think, we all have purity and beauty within us, so we always want to be in contact with the truth, goodness and beauty around us.
On the path we take, perhaps we have also had the opportunity to hear Joshua Bell's violin, and many other beautiful things around us, uplifting our souls, amidst busyness and even in the most normal circumstances, if we know how to slow down a little to have more time...
Một người chưa từng mắc lỗi là chưa từng thử qua bất cứ điều gì mới mẻ. (A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.)Albert Einstein
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