River of Thoughts Part III

A river is a conflict between two banks. It is divided between its impossible connections. Resistance flashes as the river overflows and ever new conflicts appear.
The river is that sphere where each thinks he knows how to swim right up to the point where he finds himself breathless, stuck between two banks. The river is that impossible middle point where you get stuck.

Near the fence, a street sign warned: "Swimming is forbidden." Some signs are made not to be obeyed. Every day, there are birds who swim where it is forbidden and every day people want to taste a bird's freedom.

ANTI-SCORE

-- Musicians who feel overly restricted by the tensions they feel while trying to follow exact instructions, un-restrict yourself and don't follow the indications of this score.

--Don't do what was just written above.

--Do something else which will never indicate which notes to play.

--Liberate yourself from the habit to be liberated while sitting in a cage. Now, it is not you who follows instructions. They follow you. Be ready to incarnate a human score.

--Knowing that all that is said or written is difficult to call truth, stop accompanying it. Find a timbre of silence for your unbelief.

--Find time not for further education but for an attempt to unlearn all that you know how to do. Unlearn to read, to write and to count. Look at music with new eyes. Open for yourself an unmeasurable world.

--Don't hide your agitation. In the world and in yourself constantly one thing increases while another decreases. Find your own inner waves from which music could be born.

--Don't say that it is you that wrote the music and that you want your notation to be obeyed as a kind of morality that you would impose on others. You don't know absolute truth and no one else does either. Sometimes even a little bit of truth is difficult to obtain.

--Wear the mask of truthfulness and stop the ecological catastrophe that you were contributing to by your excessive love of paper and computer productions.

--Stop yourself. Follow your own order of waves.

--There is no score. There is only a system of training for people such as you. Start to search for an exit from this system.

--Read in between the lines of this text so as to find that which you already know .

--Concentrate on your knowledge until you discover its impotence.

--Transform your movement, breath, heart beat and speed of inner thought into music without notes. Continue until the end.
--Forget about the linearity of your life which goes "note by note". Let life itself fall into senselessness until you reach the point where time disappears.

--Do as you shouldn't. There is always something wrong in "doing things as one should"
.

--Teach a composer to be glad when you don't play what he wrote since to play what he wrote is simply impossible.

--Repeat the unrepeatable in order that it becomes unique.

--Execute all in exactly the opposite way.

--Don't do anything. Turn around and follow nothingness as precisely as you can.

--Don't write a period at the end of the phrase.

-- .


We thought that the appearance of the river was provoked by the flow of our thought which has its own wave shapes and directions.

We thought that Music is the equivalent of a river and so we made a sketch with splashes of fantasy , thus, proving to ourselves by the foam in our mouths that it was a real grain of the Ideal.

We thought that the transformation of the river changes the structure of Time and that ,somewhere, there is a lever which you would like to pull...

We thought that listening carefully to the sounds of the river would give birth to Knowledge...

We listened...continued to listen...went deeply into listening...

We stopped thinking and went into Desire and enjoyed circling around it, still not knowing what we want.

THE SOURCE OF DESIRE

Composer wants to write some music, but at the same he can't force himself. He wishes to continue to be a composer, but he is in no state of mind to do the great violence to himself that would be necessary for him to produce even one single note. At the same time, he still thinks that composing music is his desire.

Composer, being at home, meets with Performer who speaks with great enthusiasm about how important Composer's desire is to him. He is ready to perform whatever Composer writes. He will learn it and play it on stage to the best of his ability. At the same time, Performer thinks to himself the opposite of what he says, that it is Composer who should be the servant of Performer ! It is Composer who should help realize the desire of Performer by writing virtuosic music especially for his very great and unique performing talent !! After feeling quite satisfied with himself, Performer warmly says goodbye to his dear friend and leaves.

No sooner does Performer leave than a new guest arrives. Conductor, gesticulating excitedly, hammers home how crucial the role of the conductor is for Composer's music, even for a small chamber ensemble. Only Conductor can really penetrate into the very heart and soul of this music. Only Conductor can make a real interpretation of Composer's desire! Such negligent musicians as Performer can't count even the simplest measures without Conductor's help. Continuing to gesticulate,Conductor smiles, keeping his unsaid thoughts to himself. He thinks that Composer is not so important finally. He only manipulates tone row material, but it is Conductor who creates the music in the here and now. Conductor's desire is so great and powerful that he can make miracles even in such sad cases as those of poor Composer whose recent uninspired and insipid use of tone row materials is of no musical interest whatsoever.

When this last great friend of Composer has left and the door closed,
the telephone rings. Who can it be but the great and powerful Mr. Festival Director !! FD says to Composer with humble fervor that he is so very grateful that Composer has found a few minutes for them to speak. FD expresses how honored he is and that, even if he doesn't deserve such a great opportunity, that he will support and sustain with all his heart and soul great Composer's desires, whatever they may be. FD will be glad to promote Composer's music with all the power of his, alas, all too modest festival ! Continuing to speak with great humility and effusively praising Composer, FD thinks to himself that, if it wasn't for him, such mediocrities as Composer wouldn't stand a chance!

Only men like FD create and define what are the priorities in music today ! Composer,Performer and Conductor are all mere "assistants". They help FD realize his desire, but FD, and others like him, are the real heros of new music today. Without their great vision, there would be no new music at all !

Composer hangs up the telephone receiver and only in this moment he discovers that a letter has arrived. The letter is signed
"Grateful Public" Mrs.GP expresses the warm wishes of the very many people who came to Composer's recent concert. They were ever so glad to support Composer's desire by their great number because they understand very well what a frustration it would have been to have one's new work performed to an empty concert hall. Of course, what Mrs. P's letter doesn't say is that, in truth, what this "grateful public" actually thinks is that it is them who decides what is good music, or not, according to their listener desire, What Mrs GP believes, but doesn't say to Composer, is that it is people, like her, the ones who pay for their tickets, who count the most for music today.
This "grateful public" demonstrate their good taste each time they pay for the music they desire to listen to by the very act of purchasing their ticket with their hard earned cash !!

Other pieces of information with regard to Composer and his work are to be found outside of Composer's house.
Critic confirms by his excellent review of Composer's latest music in the newspaper that this music is,in fact, a realization of Critic's own desire. Critic, who previously furiously attacked Composer's music, is now happy to see that Composer has changed style in a way that Critic approves, a change that Critic predicted in his bad review. Critic feels a great satisfaction that he knows best, even better and even before Composer himself !

On Internet Forums, people discuss Composer as if his music was as a consequence of a political decision that was not his own- in other words that this music reflects another desire, that of somebody very powerful controlling from above.

The woman who is sitting on the steps of the entrance of the concert hall asks for alms. Since people were in a good mood after the concert, she got more money than usual. She said that the happy event of Composer's concert reflects Destiny's desire !

Those who for one reason or another feel discontented with Composer and his music, are going to go to church next Sunday. There the priest never tires to remind all sinners over and over again that all is God's Will and ,if something happened, it was due to God's desire.

         So,          what do          you          really want to say          ?"          "What          are          you          talking          about ?"
"With regard to the river and all your fantasies...what is the general idea in these swimming metaphors and this fish-like silence ? Can you express clearly your position as the author ?"


The          author's position          is          just to          sit with          legs          crossed          and to          reflect          on          being surprised          that          with          the coming of          the day          a          new          person          appears inside          me.          The sun          is          clear in          the sky,          but          the          jungle          of          the author's thoughts          are never          clear...The complex          structure of          thoughts grew          from          an          abundance of          sun          and          river water."
"How to understand you then ?"


"Understanding is fertile ground for false conclusions. The author's desire is only to give the possibility for experiencing her text so that a river of thoughts would appear on the map of our world."


"I would surely bet on that map..." "Life ? Death ?"
"My unexistence."


"Often, for some reason, people surely bet what they don't have on such a map."



LIFE IN AN UNEXISTING WORLD

We plunge deep down into our very depths with this familiar phrase : "he exists but does not live". We who are pre-occupied with surviving are sure that the little charity of existence is indisputable and can't be taken away.

This text will shake considerably the certainty of existence and also some people's nerves; however, it doesn't have the goal to take away the last thing which people, as they imagine, have. Rather, we will find ourselves with the opposite of our familiar phrase, in its seamy side which will sound in the following way: "He lives, but doesn't exist."

We live in between a future which will never come and a past which was never in the fixed form we have shaped it into, like an old vinyl record we have the chance to play over and over, even if ,sometimes, it is getting stuck in a groove. This "in-between" which we call the present is a slipping way, an absence, the moment of which can't be caught. Past-Future ,which squeezes the moment of the Present until its impossibility, represents an illusion of existence.

So, is there existence or not ? If we admit that we exist "here", then, simultaneously, we don't exist "there" where all the rest is situated. Is "there", in this case, the necessary condition of our being "here" ? The problem ,however, is that the balance is skewed to the side of the "there". What we know of the "here" is, in fact, impossibly small. It can't
compete with what we know about its gigantic counterpart . All our knowledge of the "there" is incommensurably greater and far outweighs what we know about the "here" . Now, "there" already represents not "all the rest", but "resolutely all". "The rest" in this case is what was from the "here" and what we already can't find.

There is a person who reads this text and who feels a hardly suppressed fit of emotions which is a desire immediately to attack with criticism and argumentation this text. Of course, this person doesn't exist, but it doesn't stop the words which are always ready to describe un-existence. So, who is that person and what is his objection ?

Such a person is someone who thinks that he knows, but, at the same time, he uses in his speech such expressions as "it seems", "probably", "possibly", "I guess", "maybe" and many others. Such expressions sow doubts into the hard ground of Knowledge, as formulated by the "one who thinks he knows".

Giving arguments the structure of which are too similar to what he argues against, the main difference between this text and the arguments made against it appear to be emphasized in the peculiar manner of the "only one who knows": "indeed...", "and what is actually...", "but truly it is...". In other words, the only objection is a declaration about Reality which only he has access to. Nevertheless, there will be a not so long time before the next "only one who knows" will appear. He will refute the previous one's objections by demonstrating his mistakes. Excessive repetitions of such a scene lead thought to the point where linking words like "indeed" and other similar ones no longer have any effect because they refer us to the un-existing Realities of "Ones who know".

However, this critic still wants to say something, but not what we think, not what he means, not what he could rethink, and not about what you could say. Who is this person?

First of all, he is not a real person; it is we ,ourselves who have constructed this imaginary, un-existing person. Moreover, how we imagine any relations with him of any kind are the result of constructing differences between he and us. We imagine a lack of coincidence between our image of this critic and ourselves. In truth, we don't relate to him at all.

This person who started to speak tells about something which doesn't exist. He talks on and on about nothing at all. Nevertheless, we listen to something which doesn't coincide with what he is speaking about and with what we would want to hear.

He continues his speech promising what he will never do and already knowing that it is the case. Instead, of the old-fashioned "I", he thinks with the help of numerous "not-I" which has eroded his sense of responsibility. It is "not-I". It is "not-I" who exists for what you want, but somebody else who is nobody or un-existent. However, he denies
that lying is even available to him at all as an option. All of this becomes similar to a scene from a movie or a book where we stop believing that this is happening to us and that it really exists.

We discover it to be problematic to find somebody who really exists when, instead of expected authentic existence, we find different types of disintegration: pieces of imitation existence, fragments of life without memory, excerpts from nothing, retellings about nothing at all, parts of a whole which never were in the first place, illusions of changes for the sake of illustrating activity. All of this, finally, doesn't speak to us as existence.

Could this person exist ? Could we find something in him which could pretend to wholeness ? It seems that ,even if this person could have existed before, he left his objections against this text behind and already he doesn't think, doesn't believe it's worth the hassle, because he has no time for anything in his un-existing world...

The term "accelerated time" represents some beautiful words to distract our attention. What all people are actually running to is invisible to them. People can't see not just what they are running to, but also what they are running through. Don't you find that what is most typical of today's world is the fact that ,because all seems very distant, that this leads us to feel that it is necessary to start running ?

How can we speak about existence at all when the influence of the materialistic world established as its main value the un-existing objects that are units of money ?
Also, we should mention another influence which is called individualization or sometimes personalization and which has brought us, in essence, to the un-existence of the Other, but ,at the same time, the individual, himself, stopped existing due to the un- existence of the Other.

Speaking about the past, we have mentioned human memory and have compared it to a vinyl record, sometimes getting stuck in the groove. It wasn't done accidentally. Such a kind of memory is filled with the quivering of a deep remembrance that continues to recall the whole life long. Nowadays, we can declare it to be old fashioned for the reason that there is no need to remember anything. The function of memorization belongs for the most part to computers, mobile phones, Internet, hidden video cameras, and other technical devices that are part and parcel of our daily life. The information about us that is contained in these technical devices is much more full and detailed than what we can recall ourselves being in the normal contemporary condition of "life without memory".

Here are some particular examples. We laugh at the alcoholic who doesn't remember the next day anything of what he said and did the night before. Nevertheless, we, somehow, take seriously contemporary music performers who play what they call a "concert" who
have not memorized, or even prepared adequately, their parts as all professional classical musicians do. These ill prepared musicians remain glued to their scores because they are still, in essence, sight reading the music during the "concert". Even worse, they improvise the music when they can't sight read it, that is, when it is too hard to sight read. The next day such performers are not so different than the alcoholic in that they already forgot what they played the day before and, in any case, they didn't know what they were doing when they performed a music they didn't understand at all. According to their performing schedule, they have a new "concert" (i.e. sight-reading) today with a different music program. So, there was no reason to memorize the music they played yesterday which, as they know, didn't pretend to be a real interpretation of that music. Is there something worth memorizing for other people ?

Indeed, why load up your memory with the dead, disposable weight of information and continue to carry such useless unnecessary baggage ? Why learn music, why play by memory, when some composers no longer believe in preparing a carefully written score ? Why memorize for a public who doesn't appreciate the long and careful preliminary work of the performer thinking that what was played was an improvisation ? Why make such a useless effort so as to remember something until death ?

It is obvious that support for the phrase "people will remember" is failing. The "person without memory" is a normal contemporary state of mind, even if only certain people realize it and understand it. Parts of our life no longer motivate us to memorize, that is, to make existence be inside us. Also, it is well known that "all" is not possible to memorize, especially when there are rapid changes and ,therefore, our involuntary choice is to remember "nothing".

Un-existence is a goal for many types of searching. Specialists in different areas research un-existence in their predecessors. Those predecessors, of course, have something missing, something undeveloped, something that didn't go further, something that they didn't understand or didn't know. That material which they left behind pretends to exist, but it has already lost its own historical context and it can't be read and understood correctly. The possibility for its continuing existence can be put under question.

Now, at last, we should ask: does the author of this text exist ? Who is hidden behind all of this "I" and "we" ? Who is this author if her name doesn't mean anything to anybody ? In the consciousness of many people, this author is a "nobody" and does she need, therefore, authorship to sign her un-existing novelty ?

Stopping this river of thoughts is a way to complete this work. This is a work which, according to some theories, was created only for the author's satisfaction, to create some moments of pleasure for her. However, this work does pretend to exist. Nonetheless, this
pretension of existence may not be satisfied because of an absence of subjects who read; therefore, the book may well remain in the same un-existing world as the thoughts of its author.