People expect genius to entertain them endlessly, to fawn over their attentions, to grovel for their admiration.
Do babies thank you for shoving creamed banana in their face?
We condemn Beethoven for having affairs with women who admired his music. Us??? Our rock stars have a different flavor back stage every night. We love them for it. We expect it of them.
The big mystery of Beethoven’s live is why anybody would work so hard to create such beauty for people who hated him so very much. They taunted his genius, his disability (he was deaf in his later years); kids beat him up, the courts ruled against him.
Yet, Beethoven persevered, and created the most memorable music you will ever hear.
People think genius is just showing up at work at 8:00, clocking in, and struggling through the day bored, half asleep, stoked on coffee, and that’s that.
Genius is rumors of massive layouts at the company, friends walking out of the front office with pink slips in their hands and tears in their eyes — then arriving at 6:00 AM, letting your boss get credit for all your work — then working through lunch, frantic, hyped up — working past 7 PM and on weekends — year after year after year.
These days people are deaf to themselves, deaf to life itself. They cannot entertain their own minds. They depend on music, TV, travel, fashion, food, drugs, alcohol, caffeine, sex, abuse, gluttony — all taken in excess.
Spend one day without all of this (if you can) and that is concentration. Spend a month like that, and you’ve taken the first baby step to know your true mind. Spend years like that and you’re one drop in an ocean of sweat and tears that is true genius.
The less articulate, the more chaotic, those things that entertain you, the closer you are to the abysmal chaos that defines all things subhuman. Do you prefer Mariachi music over Beethoven? Do you have a mind or mere instinct?
Do you strive to strengthen your mind with education and culture, or just enjoy life in an endless romp through physical pleasures?
Beethoven created art of surpassing excellence. He earned the few pleasures he enjoyed in life, notably a few close lady friends whom he treated as royalty. Modern man enjoys infinitely more pleasures, for doing nothing at all but being alive.
It’s a pity that we’re not the least bit grateful but supremely narcissistic, demanding even more to satisfy our colossal egos.
Beethoven’s music is too good for us, much too good.
