Several years back in one of my graduate classes, the professor one day asked our opinions on the Terri Schiavo's controversy but found no responses. The shock on his face would never escape my memory. He took off his glasses and looked around the room. When his eyes met mine, I felt a sudden burning on my cheeks, but was quickly convinced that everyone else's face was as blushed as mine - we were ashamed for our ignorance and terrified for the consequences. It seemed to be a long silence before the professor spoke in a trembling voice:
"I know that you are music students, not academic students, but that is no excuse. Do you read about what's happening in the world? Do you think and care about what's happening around you in your own lifetime?"
Of course we mocked the incident as soon as we left the classroom like any other immature students would do, but what the professor said formed into a stone of guilt, sat heavily on my shoulders. I couldn't deny the truth that I was young, ignorant and narcissistic. I glorified classical music as the only form of so-called High Art that glowed at a sacred and purified artistic level, which none other was able to reach, thus cared little of anything else.
Do you read? Do you think? Do you care? These words ring in my conscious and unconscious minds ever since, motivating my curiosity and preventing it from being buried under the sands of laziness.
What are you reading, thinking, and caring?
No comments:
Post a Comment