kknobody in the world. not a single human death occurred on the planet
yesterday.
that’s what somebody told me in a dream last night. it was pretty weird. a
friend who i hadn’t seen in a while came up to me, smiling, and he said
“Mark, nobody died yesterday.” he meant nobody in the world, though he
didn’t say that. then he walked away, still smiling, as if he wanted me to
think about *that*.
i woke up thinking about it. what difference would it make if, for just
one day, no one died. one day would probably be insignificant.
according to seemingly reliable sources there are 8.7 deaths per 1,000
people. that seems like a lot. in my circle of circles of friends i might
know 1000 people, and it doesn’t seem like 8.7 of them every day. i know,
the stats don’t work that way. it’s just something to think about as i
make the rounds of my busy, busy day.
far more people are born each day. births minus deaths amounts to roughly
200,000 new human beings added to the planet every single day, a
surprisingly obvious number that seems to have prompted no credible
movement toward population abatement. “population abatement.” that sounds
genocidal when what i guess i really mean is population control. China
takes it seriously, it seems, but why would other nations sacrifice their
traditions of divorce and the unspoken unhappiness of parenthood when the
stigma of the singleton persists? parenthood is the path to respect, is it
not? for some, at least.
i’ve been thinking about my philosophy of life. i want to arrive at a
philiosophy of limited responsibility, or lack of responsibility. that’s
not to suggest that i advocate irresp[onsibility, which is doing stupid
things that endanger yourself and others. that’s not what i mean. i mean
that people needlessly assume responsibilities and duties in life that
primarily serve the cultural institutions and the economies that develop
around them. having not explored the meticularities of things i imagine
that the data are obvious in their damning of the institutions of
marriage, parenthood, even church and state. but data, as with the obvious
numbers demanding population abatement, are ignored by the softness of
complacency. of course i will soundly retract that admittedly bald/bold
presumption on my own ingestion and interpretation of reliable information
about these matters.
…..
in other news from my mental machinations, i’ve had a good spell of
practicing the last few weeks. it just started one day, the way things
often start, with the decision to sit down and play piano for 3 hours, or
for as long as i needed to get tired. i’ve walked away from the piano
tired and even exhausted a few times. i took today off (to tend to other
affairs) but i’ve got something going on with some new repertoire and
piano projects. i’m starting to think i should have started this
particular project a few years ago, but no need to dwell on the
unrecoverableness of time.
i had a moment of clarity last week. i sat down to write what i thought
would be a pretty simple web site application. it would start simple, at
least, and i’d develop it from those fundamental foundations. that’s kind
of how i usually do web things, or so i delude myself.
but this time i couldn’t get anything going. a connected to teh database
but that was the only success of the day. not the simplest line of code
could be executed, the passwords didn’t work, the obnoxious (and
notoriously finnicky) platform on which i chose to attempt this project
was opaque and unhelpful as could be.
after about 2 hours of continuous failure at this i stood up and walked
across the room and started playing whatever music was sitting there.
this was the moment of clarity: i am a pianist. it’s the only thing i went
to school for, only discipline for which i have any training, and maybe
even the only place on earth where i feel like i have any control over
what i’m doing. computers are in control of any work i use them for. they
say that computers only do what humans tell them to do, and what humans
instruct them to do, and i believe that. but the performance and
“character” of a computing platform derives from the human beings who
created it, and i am not among that clique.
with piano music i feel like am never alone. with computer code i am a
lone combatant. with music there is a dialogue between myself and the
composer, and with the imagined siorée of like-minded searchers who mine
music for meaning.