Arguments on a
Question of Legacy
Yet even these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
When
you get to be as old as I am, as I am aware some are definitely more seasoned
than I have been fortunate to consider myself one, you would notice more
intangibles that you want to treasure more before you forget them. At least in my particular case, that had
appeared to be a pronounced tendency.
It
is not so much because I want to catalogue them before they become totally
divorced from me. Rather because I want
to assimilate the essence of their beauty into the substance of my soul. Hopefully, by so doing, I shall have
enriched, tempered, and strengthened the essence of my being to be better able
to handle the realm of the unknown in the hereafter.
But
if there is no hereafter, you say? I
happen to believe there is. And should I
be wrong, I shall have enjoyed the process of immersing myself in the spirit of
the good, the beautiful, and the true.
If you don’t know what they are all about, there is really nothing that
I can do about it now that can be of benefit to you. You should have recognized them early on when
you started to notice yourself as a sentient being and began to wonder where your
sense and sensibility came from.
In
this ever more frequently occurring journey to what I tagged my inner universe,
I wish I would discover within me the faculty to create or compose a melody, a
musical tune out of whatever it is melodies emerge from, perhaps the
nothingness of being. I know I appreciate
the melody I like when I hear one. But
to create one out of nowhere and out of nothing, I cannot help but wonder what
the experience is like. And to be able
to communicate it to another sentient being, must constitute the consummation
of total nirvana.
It
is in this vein of total unknowing and wonderment that I listen to music. It is in this context that I acknowledge and
pay homage to the inventors of YouTube.
It is a wonderful venue to give vent to my passion to listen to melodies
which resonate with the most profound dreams and longings of my soul. Beyond that, it affords me a vehicle to belt
out a few tunes myself as a way of letting loose and let go some pent up
emotions which cannot otherwise be verbalized.
The
concept of a playlist affords me a corridor, a beach, a landscape, or a horizon
in the tides of time through which I can wander and get lost in the inner
chambers of my reverie, simultaneously as I interface with kindred journeys of
kindred souls~ ~they who uploaded the melodies which I strung together into a playlist. Not to mention the souls whose talents and
performance are showcased in the component melodies which constitute each Playlist,
I commune with them too. They are not
even aware that my soul is touching theirs in some profound way even if only
with the vestige traces of their sojourn in the vast magnificence of both the
here and now and the great beyond in God’s Creation and the infinitude thereafter.
The
playlist gives me a venue for both prospects and retrospects. It allows me to look back with gratitude and reverence
to the souls who were here before me. It
affords me to look forward with awe and nonchalance at the judgment of posterity
from the generations of souls who shall come after me. Or in the immortal lines of Thomas
Gray,
For who to dumb
Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious
being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts
of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing
lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the
parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the
closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the
voice of nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live
their wonted fires.
It is important to me that
I am aware of the various interfaces and interactions. For as John Donne in Meditation XVII would
have it,
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; . . .
It is in this spirit that
I nurture my passion to create playlists and endeavor to share them with any
and all, who might enjoy what they offer, however different from whatever ecstasy
and entertainment I derive from them.
I have so far created
twenty-five playlists, ranging in length from two to fifty component videos. In terms of playback duration it ranges from
as short as nine minutes for the two-video list to thirty-two hours for the list
of fourteen complete performances of my favorite opera masterpieces. Below is one of them which I titled “Down
Nostalgia Lane.”
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjC-YRc2AjQD7F9ZjM58X5w0o4fT6EAQs
(needs to be started manually);
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re59PF_DOrk&list=PLjC-YRc2AjQD7F9ZjM58X5w0o4fT6EAQs
(automatic playback of first member).
I don’t apologize for
including number 17. It may be crude and
devoid of any instrumentation.
It however provides a graphic illustration of the emotional outlet function
of YouTube that I alluded to earlier above.
Besides, it showcases the lyrics
I myself wrote. I am still hoping to
find somebody with better diaphragm and vocal cords than I have at my disposal
to take the composition for a much more deserving test drive than I can muster.
You may skip it at
playback. But I beseech you to not
eliminate it from the list even if you know how. That would, ipso facto, violate the intent
and charitable spirit of the venue.
Otherwise, enjoy the ride. Or in
the somberly imposing verses of John
Milton:
“. . . Live while ye may,
Yet happie pair; enjoy, till I return,
Short pleasures, for long woes are to
succeed!”
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