— When was the last time you MARVELED at something? Or put better: when was the last time you truly marveled at something that most people would completely take for granted?
I was working on some new Photoshop content this morning, and as always I wanted to have music playing, so I was running through my music collection real quick to pull something up … scrolling scrolling scrolling through my iTunes library …
And then, about halfway down, en route to Radiohead, I just stopped.
Because as I was scrolling, I hit the “M’s” … and it struck me, as I continued to scroll … that I’ve got a LOT of Mozart.
I mean, my Mozart collection just goes on and on.
And for me one of the crown jewels among this long celebration of the recorded works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one particular 10-CD Deutsche Grammophon set of the Complete Symphonies, as recorded by the Berliner Philharmoniker (Karl Bohm conducting).
We’re talking about TWELVE AND A HALF HOURS of some the finest music ever written, handed down across the centuries from one of the greatest musical geniuses to ever walk the Earth …
All of it performed by one of the world’s finest orchestras, and recorded here in pristine audio …
And all of it now neatly tucked away in my iTunes library, where I can pull up any symphony I wish, at a moment’s notice, and bring the entire orchestra to life through my sound system — with but a single keystroke.
If that is not marvelous, I don’t know what is.
I tell you, it gave me pause.
But how easy is to forget to marvel at that which should leave us the most gobsmacked if we actually took a second to think about it?
How easy would it have been to have blown right past the M’s in my iTunes library with barely a passing thought for the miracle of Mozart and the even greater miracle that he is somehow now living on my hard drive?
And we all do this. Every day. We blow right past things that would have completely floored anyone a hundred and fifty years ago.
Heck, some things we take completely for granted today would have floored anyone even twenty-five years ago.
The computer I’m typing this on, for instance. Photoshop (in all its glory) open in the background. The full-frame digital camera sitting next to me on my desk. The iPhone I have off to one side, timing this writing session.
I don’t know about you, but I make a point to stop now and then and really take in how AMAZING all of this is.
Even now I pause …
I close my eyes …
Mozart’s “Paris” Symphony (No. 31) is playing.
What a miracle it is that I can sit here at my desk and hear a full symphony delivering the performance of a work conjured over two hundred years ago in the mind of one of the greatest composers the world has ever known.
It leaves me breathless just thinking about it.
I urge you to take a few minutes today to stop in whatever you are doing and fully enjoy something equally miraculous in your own life.
Really savor it.
Take a few minutes to MARVEL at it.
For me, not a day goes by that I do not marvel at some particular book or piece of music, or at something wonderful about one of my cats, or at the beauty of the mountains where I live (or the miracle of fortune that I get to live here and enjoy the sun rising over the mountains each morning).
But what is it for you?
Pause awhile and think . . . Then perhaps grab your camera and capture it if you can. Or capture something of what it means to you. Then carry your photos off to Photoshop and see if you can create a work of art that conveys that sense of astonishment and fascination that you felt.
How much richer would your life be if you paused more often in your days and breathed in the miracles that surround us all … but which we all too often miss?
How much more impassioned would your art become, if your canvases became worlds of wonder and awe?
– Sebastian