I feel like I spend more time with my computer than I do with people. This makes me really sad, and it certainly doesn’t help that I’m using the medium of the blog to express my emotions.
When I wake up in the morning, my first impulse is to check what time it is. Then, it’s to check my email. Disgusting, I know. I really want to get out of this habit, but it seems like the messages in my inbox are leading my life.
I get my daily fix of news from bbc.uk, or cnn.com. I do my research using an online wiki. I compose my assignments in word doc’s. I chat online with my friends. I listen to music off of my computer.
Maybe the fact is that I don’t want to admit that I feel closer to my computer than anyone at Stanford. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I worship my computer as herald of world news, a source of inspiration, and an idol I should worship. On the contrary, it’s almost terrible how much I spend pecking at those darned keys and carressing the touchpad. It’s that I haven’t found someone that I feel close to.
Actually, it might be my violin. There was this moment today when I was practicing when I swear the violin was speaking to me, and I was speaking to it. Gosh, I’m pathetic, trying to substitute human interaction with musical actions. But it was so powerful. It might have to do with the amazing concert that my teacher played last Saturday. Playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in a beautiful acoustic space, she reminded me of the wonderful medium of music.
The ice crackled, and the storms rushed when she played Winter. And I could see the joyous nymphs prance around in Spring. I think that my relationship to music is changing. Right now, I have the most motivation ever to practice more, and to practice intelligently. To learn the intricacies of the music I am playing, and to understand the physical nuances of the mechanism of playing the violin.
I feel the contact of my middle finger of my bow hand on the stick of the bow. I notice the lightness of my fingers in my left hand as they execute a 32 note passage. I feel the string that passes through my head and spine magically draw me upright. I have this most amazing body awareness.
It must be the yoga/pilates fusion class that I’m taking. It feels so awesomely relaxing just to lay on the mat and feel the anchors in my sacrum, heels, lower ribs, shoulders, and head pulling me down to the floor, releasing all the tension in my body.
It’s during these moments where I feel alive. Despite the fact that there’s a huge black industrial sized fan hovering above me, and the fact that I’m in a building, rather than the outdoors, I can create my own sense of humanness, feeling, and relaxation in that room in Arrillaga Gym.
Then I return to the worries and stresses of everyday life. Like, losing my phone! Argh! This has been very frustrating. And learning about how scientists are more than ninety percent sure that global warming has been induced by human-produced carbon emissions. And Bush’s budget proposal which aims to reduce wasteful government spending by cutting Medicare by one percent, while simultaneously appealing to Congress for billions more money. And the interesting and unequal juxtaposition in the news of football-induced violence in Italy with bomb-induced violience in Iraq.
By golly, I think I need to go sit underneath a tree and meditate.
