the Hyperion Chronicles
“If a tree fell in the forest, would he hop back up and try to play it off, so he wouldn’t look like a dork in front of his tree friends?”
#135 The Sound of No Hands Clapping and other Meditations
The bee in the window
The other day I was getting a drink of water at the kitchen sink. I looked up at the large picture window the spans half the kitchen, although truth be told there is nothing to see but some sort of local power station, and once you’ve ascertained they used two different shades of red for the large antennae, you’re really out of things to look at.
This particular time, however, there was something, a large bee, determinedly and repeatedly flying into said picture window. Like many of the lower animals, the bee was unaware of the difference between the great outdoors and silicone dioxide heated until it makes glass. I stood—transfixed—as this bee again and again rammed its battered frame into the windowpane, only to fall back, stunned, regroup, and try again. In a strange way, his persistence in the face of certain failure was kind of charming, and I started wishing that somehow he would find a way through the glass.
Of course, what the poor bee didn’t know was that his goal was tantalizingly close at hand. A few feet from the window was the open back door that the bee had flew in initially. All the bee had to do was back up from the window, take a look around, and he’d see another source of daylight. Even if he ran into the back door a couple of times (also glass), eventually he’d have to find the three foot opening, and the fresh air he so desperately craved. But, it was not to be, as the little guy was so set on what was right in front of him, he couldn’t see freedom so close at hand.
The Circle of Life
This has happened to me so many times I’ve lost count. I’ll learn something for the first time, like a word or song or whatever, and then that next week I’ll see what I learned all over the place. Or, I’ll talk about someone I haven’t seen in four years, and then run into them later in the day. I also have these times where I have an idea, but can’t quite figure out what my brain is talking about, like the idea is in a language I can’t speak. I can almost get it, but not quite. Do you know what I mean? Does this happen to you?
It happens often enough that I sometimes wonder if there is a purpose to it all, something I’m supposed to be doing with the information that I’m just not seeing in my current state of consciousness. Of course, I’m not sure why God (or whomever) would put a song in my head out of the blue and then later play it on the radio. Most of these things don’t seem important enough to have a special purpose.
The only other thing I can think of, and I hesitate to even mention it, because it sounds so silly, is that everyone and everything might be connected in a way we haven’t fully grasped yet. I’ve never been a big believer in Karl Jung and his “collective unconscious,” but I’m man enough to admit I don’t know everything and am wrong about much that I do know. Maybe we are all connected on some level, and those times we run across it, even in the mundane day-to-day life, is a glimpse into that world. Maybe the times we almost have something or something comes up again and again we’re close, like we’re pressing on the surface of a dark bubble; almost able to see in, but not quite. I wonder what would happen if that bubble burst.
The sound of no hands clapping
Finally, we come to my new favorite concept, the Japanese word ma. A few months back I wrote about the Bernard Pivot Questionnaire. One of the questions was “What is your favorite sound?” I always answered that question with “the sound of silence, right before sound.”
What I meant by that can best be illustrated in music. In some songs, there is a moment, when everything goes a cappella, or all the instruments come back in, or there is a big key change, or something. Right before that, there is always a 1/8th second of silence, before the new sound rushes in to fill the gap. That’s what I love.
Well, the other day I was reading an interview Roger Ebert had with Miyazaki; an icon of Japanese animation, and director of such masterpieces like Princess Mononoke, and last year’s Oscarä winning Spirited Away. Rather than rewrite the whole scene, here is the interchange between Ebert and Miyazaki:
I [Ebert] told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.
"We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."
Is that like the "pillow words" that separate phrases in Japanese poetry?
"I don't think it's like the pillow words." He clapped his hands three or four times. "The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have nonstop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time, you just get numb."
Even though Miyazaki was talking about film, I absolutely love the concept of ma, and think it can apply to our lives as well. So often we rush around doing things, and it’s easy to get numb. We forget that without silence, without solitude, without those times of quiet reflection, the hectic hustle and bustle of our lives can lose meaning.
Maybe like the bee, we are so focused on what we think is in front of us; we fail to stop, reflect, and look around for a better way.
Maybe there is a connection, or purpose to even the regular events in our lives, but we’re so caught up in the moment we never see it.
What I am going to try to do, then, and I encourage you to as well, is to take time when nothing is happening. Take time when you stop the frenetic pace of your life, and sit in silence, just still and empty. Strive to know the sound that comes between the claps.
Hyperion
July 16, 2003
For more information
For the website with Ebert’s interview of Miyazaki, go here
For the full Bernard Pivot Questionnaire, go here
Credits
Thanks to Kimbo, Achmed, and Tootsie, for idea help
Thanks to Koz for Editing
Thanks to Ebert and Miyazaki
Thanks to Bernard Pivot
Thanks to a determined bee
@2003 the Hyperion Chronicles
“If a tree fell in the forest, would he hop back up and try to play it off, so he wouldn’t look like a dork in front of his tree friends?”
#135 The Sound of No Hands Clapping and other Meditations
The bee in the window
The other day I was getting a drink of water at the kitchen sink. I looked up at the large picture window the spans half the kitchen, although truth be told there is nothing to see but some sort of local power station, and once you’ve ascertained they used two different shades of red for the large antennae, you’re really out of things to look at.
This particular time, however, there was something, a large bee, determinedly and repeatedly flying into said picture window. Like many of the lower animals, the bee was unaware of the difference between the great outdoors and silicone dioxide heated until it makes glass. I stood—transfixed—as this bee again and again rammed its battered frame into the windowpane, only to fall back, stunned, regroup, and try again. In a strange way, his persistence in the face of certain failure was kind of charming, and I started wishing that somehow he would find a way through the glass.
Of course, what the poor bee didn’t know was that his goal was tantalizingly close at hand. A few feet from the window was the open back door that the bee had flew in initially. All the bee had to do was back up from the window, take a look around, and he’d see another source of daylight. Even if he ran into the back door a couple of times (also glass), eventually he’d have to find the three foot opening, and the fresh air he so desperately craved. But, it was not to be, as the little guy was so set on what was right in front of him, he couldn’t see freedom so close at hand.
The Circle of Life
This has happened to me so many times I’ve lost count. I’ll learn something for the first time, like a word or song or whatever, and then that next week I’ll see what I learned all over the place. Or, I’ll talk about someone I haven’t seen in four years, and then run into them later in the day. I also have these times where I have an idea, but can’t quite figure out what my brain is talking about, like the idea is in a language I can’t speak. I can almost get it, but not quite. Do you know what I mean? Does this happen to you?
It happens often enough that I sometimes wonder if there is a purpose to it all, something I’m supposed to be doing with the information that I’m just not seeing in my current state of consciousness. Of course, I’m not sure why God (or whomever) would put a song in my head out of the blue and then later play it on the radio. Most of these things don’t seem important enough to have a special purpose.
The only other thing I can think of, and I hesitate to even mention it, because it sounds so silly, is that everyone and everything might be connected in a way we haven’t fully grasped yet. I’ve never been a big believer in Karl Jung and his “collective unconscious,” but I’m man enough to admit I don’t know everything and am wrong about much that I do know. Maybe we are all connected on some level, and those times we run across it, even in the mundane day-to-day life, is a glimpse into that world. Maybe the times we almost have something or something comes up again and again we’re close, like we’re pressing on the surface of a dark bubble; almost able to see in, but not quite. I wonder what would happen if that bubble burst.
The sound of no hands clapping
Finally, we come to my new favorite concept, the Japanese word ma. A few months back I wrote about the Bernard Pivot Questionnaire. One of the questions was “What is your favorite sound?” I always answered that question with “the sound of silence, right before sound.”
What I meant by that can best be illustrated in music. In some songs, there is a moment, when everything goes a cappella, or all the instruments come back in, or there is a big key change, or something. Right before that, there is always a 1/8th second of silence, before the new sound rushes in to fill the gap. That’s what I love.
Well, the other day I was reading an interview Roger Ebert had with Miyazaki; an icon of Japanese animation, and director of such masterpieces like Princess Mononoke, and last year’s Oscarä winning Spirited Away. Rather than rewrite the whole scene, here is the interchange between Ebert and Miyazaki:
I [Ebert] told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.
"We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."
Is that like the "pillow words" that separate phrases in Japanese poetry?
"I don't think it's like the pillow words." He clapped his hands three or four times. "The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have nonstop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time, you just get numb."
Even though Miyazaki was talking about film, I absolutely love the concept of ma, and think it can apply to our lives as well. So often we rush around doing things, and it’s easy to get numb. We forget that without silence, without solitude, without those times of quiet reflection, the hectic hustle and bustle of our lives can lose meaning.
Maybe like the bee, we are so focused on what we think is in front of us; we fail to stop, reflect, and look around for a better way.
Maybe there is a connection, or purpose to even the regular events in our lives, but we’re so caught up in the moment we never see it.
What I am going to try to do, then, and I encourage you to as well, is to take time when nothing is happening. Take time when you stop the frenetic pace of your life, and sit in silence, just still and empty. Strive to know the sound that comes between the claps.
Hyperion
July 16, 2003
For more information
For the website with Ebert’s interview of Miyazaki, go here
For the full Bernard Pivot Questionnaire, go here
Credits
Thanks to Kimbo, Achmed, and Tootsie, for idea help
Thanks to Koz for Editing
Thanks to Ebert and Miyazaki
Thanks to Bernard Pivot
Thanks to a determined bee
@2003 the Hyperion Chronicles
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