ZEN AND THE ART OF THE CELLO

“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear.” - John Cage

A close friend of mine has left his cello at my house while he's away working in India on a film production, and now, every morning when I see the encased instrument, I’ve begun to view it as a sort of live-in sculpture or monolith, with an almost sentient presence.

In the hush of its untapped potential, I can hear all the unplayed music of its unmoving strings, and in its stoic and statuesque stillness, there’s a unique kind of beauty to its quietness—something composer John Cage could no doubt have written a piece about if he were still alive - 32 Variations on Silence or some similar title. Or is it the case that I'm now at a stage in my life where I've heard so much music that even silence itself has been corrupted by my hyperactive imagination and endless references? Possibly.

There’s also the thought I’ve had that this solo cello could be seen as a metaphor for my own failure to maximise my potential. Was there another life for us both where this cello might be being played right now, while I could be five thousand miles away in India or some other foreign land—a kind of Sliding Doors situation?

But then, as I conceived of this cosmic idea, I realised I’d already visualized that other life and returned home again in a fraction of a second, confirming that the mind is the greatest vehicle for moving at high speed across the world and the universe (and with a zero carbon footprint!).

And yet, that cello still remains unplayed.

Or does it? Perhaps it, like me, is imagining in quicksilver milliseconds all its other life paths, only to return to this moment in which we share the very same space in silence.

Okay, who spiked my coffee this morning?