Shall we dance?

Anna says today is Noah's birthday. I wonder if she's right! hehehe

I was listening to CBC the other night, and they were doing a little special on Alan Watts. He is called the foremost interpreter of eastern philosophies (like Zen Buddhism) to the West. Now, I will by no means endorse this guy as a whole, but there was one analogy that spoke to me.
He talked about 2 different approaches to life explained by music and travel.

Music and travel are 2 very different things in their nature. Travel is goal oriented. It's about getting where you are going. It doesn't matter which chair you sit on while waiting to board etc. But Music, well, music is an entirely different bird. It is ALL about the journey. Completely NOT goal oriented. If it was, Watts argues, concertgoers would crowd into halls only to hear one great, cacophanous, smashing final chord, and leave satisfied. The best composers would only compose finales, etc. But this is of course not at all the case. Music is about every moment along the way. Making the most beauty and expression out of each note, each phrase. Milking it! There are musicians who blow through a piece as IF music were goal oriented, just breezing over some of the best material without a thought, but they are sharply and frequently criticised by their fellows, because... they are wrong.

Of course he followed with the supposition that life can be approached either of these ways. He posits, what if we were pursuing this one goal of life, and all along we should have been dancing to the music?

While I don't agree that there is NO goal to life, I do think that the more "musical" approach definitely has its own virtue, is often overlooked, and should be given much more consideration. Now by this I do not suggest that we should be taoist floaters, or undriven wanderers. But rather while we are travelling perhaps, we DO care who we sit next to, who we talk to, what we eat for lunch, who needs a door held for them, how much we carry with us, how many times we make someone smile, what music is playing on the loudspeaker, how the clouds are carrying themselves that day. And maybe if there is something particularly good on the loudspeaker, we not be afraid to get down and do a little boogie.

Just thoughts.