The soundtrack of my life during the first halcyon summer holiday
at Lookout Beach Plettenberg Bay was hands down unquestionably no
doubt about it The Beatles Abbey Road. It was, after the
breakthrough Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
their second concept album in which breaks between
tracks and sides were completely arbitrary and basically
non-existent. It was one seamless whole.
As a
monastery
in which to discover who you really are, there's nothing quite like
music. In Plettenberg Bay I listened to Abbey Road, as did everyone
else. It was the soundtrack of their lives too. But later, much
much later, I came to appreciate, by realizing what I
didn't do, I hadn't ever listened to
Abbey Road. I came to see I hadn't listened to anything else, for
that matter, either. What I did do by default, rather, was
hear.
The distinction is both subtle and profound. Hearing
is listening without any responsibility, without any ownership. At
worst, hearing is simply
eardrums'
automatic sensory reaction to soundwaves, machinery which doesn't
require the presence of who you really are. At best, it's paying
attention. Listening is hearing with creativity, with
responsibility, with intention, with bringing your
Self to bear on the matter. And the thing is this:
when you hear Abbey Road, obviously it's The Beatles
creating the music. But when you listen Abbey Road,
it's you creating the possibility of The Beatles
creating the music. I didn't fully appreciate that until at
least a decade later and the
inexorable
meeting with Werner
Erhard.
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