Mozart effect

Every day I wake up early.

But not that early…

Normally around 5:30/6:00 a.m.

But today I woke up at 4:00. Mind completely awake. No explanations from the universe.

On these rare occasions, I take the opportunity to do something I seldom do:

I put on my headphones and just calmly listen to a monumental work of music that is usually very important to me, but that my current schedule and lifestyle don´t allow for me to do regularly.

Today´s choice was Mozart´s Requiem.

I probably haven´t heard the complete work since I saw it live in Amsterdam about 15 years ago.

How can anybody create such beauty? And out of death?

In case you don´t know it, a requiem is a catholic mass dedicated to a recently deceased person. And some composers, just like they musicalized regular masses (like Bach), they also musicalized requiems, a type of mass.

What moves me so much is how humans, always in pursuit of finding and giving meaning to things, come up with ever more beautiful and profound ways of expressing the most transcendental aspects of life.

Like love. Or death.

Or life itself.

Because a requiem to me is also a struggle for understanding the complexity (or simplicity?) of death, and of life.

If death wouldn´t exist, if we would be immortal, how different would life be? Would it be less beautiful? Less exciting?

It´s all questions. And no answers. The more I know, the more ignorant I become.

It´s been said a million times. But that doesn´t make it any less true: Live, while you´re alive. Make every second count.

Have a great day,

Claudio.

P.D. It´s 5:30 when I write this, my regular waking-up time.

P.D.2 AND, I´m under the influence of a requiem, which is no small thing. Therefore the tone of today´s message.

P.D.3 Go listen to Mozart´s Requiem. Especially if you´ve never done it before.