(A Musical Reflection) By Dr. Persico with help from his AI Assistant Metis
Introduction:
I wrote this over ten years ago but recently decided to revise it. My original composition did not hit the mark, and few readers thought it was memorable. My goal was to infuse my writing with the essence of good music. I love music. When I want passion in my life, I turn to music. Some writing, particularly speeches, seem to have the ability to invoke the same passion in our lives as music often does. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” Douglas Mc Arthur’s “Old Soldiers Never Die” speech” and of course Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Great writing and great music share a common rhythm. If my beloved writing coach Dr. Carolyn Wedin were still alive, I know she could give me lessons on accomplishing this objective. As it is, I am relying on my writing assistant Metis for input. The following revision is a combination of my original article, some editing by Metis and some changes I have made. Let me know if you think this has hit the mark.
Allegro
What does writing have to do with making love?
What does the turning of the seasons have to do with an overture?
Perhaps more than we imagine.
Perhaps everything.
What if, on some primal level, we all live by an unseen rhythmic law?
A rhythm that moves the tides and the winds.
A rhythm that guides music and dance.
A rhythm that governs love, work, and even thought.
The seasons move in rhythm.
Music moves in rhythm.
Our lives move in rhythm.
Spring rises.
Summer swells.
Autumn storms.
Winter rests.
Morning becomes afternoon.
Afternoon becomes evening.
Evening becomes night.
The great overtures of Stravinsky and Beethoven rise and fall like the gales of November.
All things are one, say the mystics.
If that is true, then perhaps writing too must find its rhythm.
Can words form and norm, storm and perform?
Can language dance?
Adagio
I would not presume to confuse philosophy with art.
Greater minds than mine have spoken of the unity of life.
Still, I wonder.
We walk through the world beside countless others whose rhythms we rarely hear.
A carpenter.
A scientist.
A teacher.
An artist.
A hero.
Each life beating to its own quiet tempo.
We are, as the song says, dust in the wind.
And yet our rhythms echo.
Some rhythms thunder.
Some whisper.
Some comfort.
Some disturb.
We capture them in many forms.
Lyrics.
Verses.
Stanzas.
Steps of choreography.
Hard then soft.
Loud then quiet.
Now we roar.
Now we snore.
Always the rhythm continues.
Scherzo
Love has its rhythms too.
The waltz once kept lovers polite and measured.
Then came the tango—
closer, sharper, filled with sudden turns and dangerous pauses.
Then came rock and roll.
The music grew louder.
The distance between lovers grew smaller.
The rules grew fewer.
The rhythms of music often mirror the rhythms of our love.
Sometimes gentle as a warm breeze.
Sometimes wild as a storm.
Shall love begin with an allegro?
Then soften into an adagio?
Perhaps to break suddenly into a playful scherzo?
And always—always—
move toward a crescendo.
Should love follow the order of a classical symphony?
Or should it improvise like jazz?
Perhaps both.
Perhaps the best love songs do exactly that.
Rondo
And so my writing wanders.
I have written these thoughts in four movements,
because life itself seems to move that way.
Spring opens the score with fresh notes of possibility.
Summer brings the full orchestration of maturity and growth.
Autumn introduces the winds and storms that remind us of our fragility.
Winter lowers the tempo.
The music quiets.
The final chords begin to fade.
Yet the rhythm does not end.
It never ends.
The rhythms that shaped our lives were not ours alone.
They began before we arrived.
They will continue long after we are gone.
Our work.
Our words.
Our music.
Our love.
All of them become part of a much larger symphony.
Perhaps someday a visitor will stand beside my grave.
Perhaps they will press a small button on my grave-stone and hear a recording of me laughing, singing, and dancing.
Not silence.
Not finality.
But rhythm.
Because the universe itself seems to move in rhythm.
The tides.
The seasons.
The music.
The dance.
The beating of the human heart.
And if we listen carefully—
if we write carefully—
if we love carefully—
we may discover that life was never chaos at all.
It was always a symphony.
And we are all fortunate enough to play our small part in the music.
The Music of the Universe.
Aging Capriciously 