A while ago, A and I were watching an episode of 'Lost' where Jack plays 'Heart and Soul' with his fiance. For those who are wondering what that is, it's a very simple yet beautiful piano piece meant to be played by two people sitting side by side. One plays the base chords while the other plays the melody. Back in grad school I learnt to play both parts from a friend.
Anyway, so watching that episode of Lost once again triggered my passion for learning to play the piano. I say once again because I spent some time in 2002 teaching myself to play from some of the most amazing lessons I've come across, at the end of which I was able to play at the level of an advanced beginner. I can even play the first page of fur elise!!
For the curious, visit: www.learnpianoonline.com
I stumbled across this website while search for piano lessons and stuck to this site after trying out many many others. If you are interested in teaching yourself, I guarantee you will not find self teaching lessons better than these. They are very intuitive and with a well thought out progression. Back in 2002, she had many more free lessons on the site. Now the free section has become much shorter. But the $69 for a year's premium membership is still a GREAT alternative to taking physical lessons which typically cost something like $75 - $100 per hour or sometimes even 1/2 hour!! I'm now considering signing up for the membership....only one question remains - will I hold myself to my resolution this year?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Living without answers?
I haven't been writing for a long time. Ironically, it's not because I haven't had anything to say, it's because I've had too much. Funny isn't it? My problem is that when I am overwhelmed with too many thoughts, they're just filling up my head so quickly that I don't know where to begin. For the past few weeks, that's indeed been the case. So this is my attempt at a semblance of brain dump of some of those thoughts, for my sake actually.
Lately, I've been trying to recollect the epiphanies and most significant moments of my life. Things that have fundamentally altered either my basic philosophies or the course of my life. One such life changing event was when I stepped over the mental boundary about believing in the big G - God. That moment I realized that religion, caste, creed etc are all conditioned states of our minds. Conditioned over thousands of generations for the sake of achieving social sanity especially in the early years of civilisation. It was a very liberating experience. You'd think I'd be afraid of not having that mental safety net created by the concept of God. Nope, no such thing. It was truly liberating. I think it was liberating less because of the actual belief in question here and more because of my realisation that being a sceptic was not only OK but also necessary. Not only that, something else happened. I wasn't afraid or unhappy being 'lost' anymore. I couldn't put that feeling of being lost yet happy into the words until I saw the movie Thumbsucker last weekend. Keanu Reeves (yea - playing a hippy orthodontist) realizes about three quarters into the movie that the trick to a happy life is to live without answers. That's when it hit me. That's when I realized exactly what I had felt when I crossed that line in my head.
Don't get me wrong. I don't for a second pretend to know how the universe (or universes(?)) works or whether or not our very existence has a higher purpose. I contemplate that almost every waking hour myself. But what I DID have a problem with was the concept of a dogmatic God whose rules you must follow. I realized that we Indians are brought up with the idea that questioning beliefs is wrong. Think about it. How many times has a teacher in school told you not to ask stupid questions. I also come from a conservative (extended) family background and I know that bringing a discussion like this to a dinner table would be considered somewhat of a heresy. Thankfully, my parents aren't super conservative and always taught me the value of scepticism. It's only when you start asking these questions that you realize even the people around you who you once thought knew everything don't really know the answers to those questions. They're in for the ride as well but choose to live their lives by what they think are tried and tested paths of least resistance. In reality, I think humanity is always looking for answers and when it seems like we've searched all avenues and yet found nothing, we create answers in order to cope with the disorientation and void that results from it.
Whew! I don't think I can go on any further although I'm still flooded with a multitude of thoughts. I'm slowly feeling the weight of my eyelids. And in the real world, I do have a job to go to in the morning. ;-) So much for a brain dump at 1 am. Time to drag myself to bed. Maybe next time I'll write about more concrete, realistic and light hearted things like ... my new year resolutions ... or something ...
Lately, I've been trying to recollect the epiphanies and most significant moments of my life. Things that have fundamentally altered either my basic philosophies or the course of my life. One such life changing event was when I stepped over the mental boundary about believing in the big G - God. That moment I realized that religion, caste, creed etc are all conditioned states of our minds. Conditioned over thousands of generations for the sake of achieving social sanity especially in the early years of civilisation. It was a very liberating experience. You'd think I'd be afraid of not having that mental safety net created by the concept of God. Nope, no such thing. It was truly liberating. I think it was liberating less because of the actual belief in question here and more because of my realisation that being a sceptic was not only OK but also necessary. Not only that, something else happened. I wasn't afraid or unhappy being 'lost' anymore. I couldn't put that feeling of being lost yet happy into the words until I saw the movie Thumbsucker last weekend. Keanu Reeves (yea - playing a hippy orthodontist) realizes about three quarters into the movie that the trick to a happy life is to live without answers. That's when it hit me. That's when I realized exactly what I had felt when I crossed that line in my head.
Don't get me wrong. I don't for a second pretend to know how the universe (or universes(?)) works or whether or not our very existence has a higher purpose. I contemplate that almost every waking hour myself. But what I DID have a problem with was the concept of a dogmatic God whose rules you must follow. I realized that we Indians are brought up with the idea that questioning beliefs is wrong. Think about it. How many times has a teacher in school told you not to ask stupid questions. I also come from a conservative (extended) family background and I know that bringing a discussion like this to a dinner table would be considered somewhat of a heresy. Thankfully, my parents aren't super conservative and always taught me the value of scepticism. It's only when you start asking these questions that you realize even the people around you who you once thought knew everything don't really know the answers to those questions. They're in for the ride as well but choose to live their lives by what they think are tried and tested paths of least resistance. In reality, I think humanity is always looking for answers and when it seems like we've searched all avenues and yet found nothing, we create answers in order to cope with the disorientation and void that results from it.
Whew! I don't think I can go on any further although I'm still flooded with a multitude of thoughts. I'm slowly feeling the weight of my eyelids. And in the real world, I do have a job to go to in the morning. ;-) So much for a brain dump at 1 am. Time to drag myself to bed. Maybe next time I'll write about more concrete, realistic and light hearted things like ... my new year resolutions ... or something ...
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