Black Bucket Essays
Volume 1, Issue 2
Normalize difference until there is no space between self and other.
Bart O'Reilly
I recently re-read John Cage’s Lecture on Something. I find it to be about letting go of a strong attachment to ones sense of self. An inflated notion of self can result in a separation from life. In a single- minded effort to devote oneself to a particular activity (Cage gives the example of composing music), we are sometimes interrupted when something else happens.
If this is unwelcome then for the composer there is a separation. There is the activity of composing and there is the rest of life. If one strives only for the act of composition, then the rest of life, Cage says becomes just a series of interruptions. Cage advocates an acceptance of whatever comes. An acceptance of interruption, an acceptance of nothing, an acceptance of the sounds that interrupt the performance, ultimately I would say an acceptance of the other. He speaks of the comfortable silences that can happen between close friends. This is not an absence or a lack. It is a sense of oneness. He follows this thought with two blank pages. In fact the printed form of the lecture in the book Silence is broken up by many spaces and silences. The gaps represent nothing, which he maintains will always be present when we speak of something.
These gaps might also be the silence between close friends, rather than be nothing they may represent oneness, unity or acceptance of things as they are. Nothing in the place of something is just as acceptable as something in the place of nothing. I read this lecture two years ago and I do not recall any of this sinking in. I was busy; always looking for “time to myself” time to make art, time to think. Always looking to separate myself from the rest of my life. Life was happening to me and it felt unpleasant, unwanted and distracting. I hated the interruptions that were the people and events in my day -to -day existence. I just wanted time in the studio.
Time for me, my sense of self and ego separated me from those around me. It is only now; two years later after re-reading Cages Lecture on Something that I can begin to grasp it’s profound wisdom. Cage opens our eyes to some fundamental truths that for anyone, but especially many of the artists I know, lead to a great sense of freedom. Cage contends that life is not a series of beginnings, middles and ends, (He also substitutes ends for meanings or adds it as a fourth element). It is an egocentric view of the world that attaches too much importance to the self that causes the individual to see things in this way. Life he insists is continuity; acceptance of this has led me to a great sense of inner peace. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, “For it is by self-forgetting that one finds”
There is a peace in not forcing ones will onto the surrounding world. There is peace in acceptance and letting go that allows for a meaningful contact with those around us. Things happen to us often it is the actions of another. Sometimes they are good sometimes they are bad. Sometimes change in the weather makes it rain when I want sunshine. I am a small part in the much wider, perhaps infinite, universe. How I frame my experiences either creates a connection between others and myself or causes a separation. If we accept things as they are it leads to a sense of freedom and openness to others. We should let ourselves off the hook. As Cage says and I paraphrase, when I took the weight of the world from my shoulders the world did not fall down.
Volume 1, Issue 2
Normalize difference until there is no space between self and other.
Bart O'Reilly
I recently re-read John Cage’s Lecture on Something. I find it to be about letting go of a strong attachment to ones sense of self. An inflated notion of self can result in a separation from life. In a single- minded effort to devote oneself to a particular activity (Cage gives the example of composing music), we are sometimes interrupted when something else happens.
If this is unwelcome then for the composer there is a separation. There is the activity of composing and there is the rest of life. If one strives only for the act of composition, then the rest of life, Cage says becomes just a series of interruptions. Cage advocates an acceptance of whatever comes. An acceptance of interruption, an acceptance of nothing, an acceptance of the sounds that interrupt the performance, ultimately I would say an acceptance of the other. He speaks of the comfortable silences that can happen between close friends. This is not an absence or a lack. It is a sense of oneness. He follows this thought with two blank pages. In fact the printed form of the lecture in the book Silence is broken up by many spaces and silences. The gaps represent nothing, which he maintains will always be present when we speak of something.
These gaps might also be the silence between close friends, rather than be nothing they may represent oneness, unity or acceptance of things as they are. Nothing in the place of something is just as acceptable as something in the place of nothing. I read this lecture two years ago and I do not recall any of this sinking in. I was busy; always looking for “time to myself” time to make art, time to think. Always looking to separate myself from the rest of my life. Life was happening to me and it felt unpleasant, unwanted and distracting. I hated the interruptions that were the people and events in my day -to -day existence. I just wanted time in the studio.
Time for me, my sense of self and ego separated me from those around me. It is only now; two years later after re-reading Cages Lecture on Something that I can begin to grasp it’s profound wisdom. Cage opens our eyes to some fundamental truths that for anyone, but especially many of the artists I know, lead to a great sense of freedom. Cage contends that life is not a series of beginnings, middles and ends, (He also substitutes ends for meanings or adds it as a fourth element). It is an egocentric view of the world that attaches too much importance to the self that causes the individual to see things in this way. Life he insists is continuity; acceptance of this has led me to a great sense of inner peace. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, “For it is by self-forgetting that one finds”
There is a peace in not forcing ones will onto the surrounding world. There is peace in acceptance and letting go that allows for a meaningful contact with those around us. Things happen to us often it is the actions of another. Sometimes they are good sometimes they are bad. Sometimes change in the weather makes it rain when I want sunshine. I am a small part in the much wider, perhaps infinite, universe. How I frame my experiences either creates a connection between others and myself or causes a separation. If we accept things as they are it leads to a sense of freedom and openness to others. We should let ourselves off the hook. As Cage says and I paraphrase, when I took the weight of the world from my shoulders the world did not fall down.
