Sometime is too much

I think my eye's been leaking.

I was watching some show this evening, 60/60, 20 Minutes... whatever. They were talking about musical savants. One of these prodigies was blind as well as being mentally retarded. I mean than in a very clinical sense: he is unable to buckle his seatbelt, unable to tie his shoes, unable, even, to button his shirt.

But he remembers every song that he has ever heard, and is able to play it upon request on a piano.

As the segment was cut, the interviewer asked "can you hold up 3 fingers?" He held up all ten, stretched taught, and responded "I don't know how to do that."

Asked shortly thereafter if he could play "The girl from Ipanema", he went straight into song.

And this is what got me. They asked if he could interpret musical phrases as if done by another talent. Bach became perhaps too complex when asked to be interpreted as Mozart. Perhaps too regimented and baroque when asked to be interpret as "Russian". But it was organic, and real and, TV to be trusted, in the moment and beautiful. Not that he didn't miss some notes, not that it was Carnegie-ready, but it was immediate and incredible.

I had stood, mid living-room with my hand on my hip, watching the segment. Very shortly into the performance, I was forced to step outside. Ostensibly for a cigarette, but honestly because I was emotionally overwhelmed.

My mother tells a story from when I was a little tike. I was watching "Close Encounters" at the foot of the TV in my parent's bedroom as they were getting ready for bed. After the famous musical encounter, when the aliens opened the hatch and showed themselves, my mother tells me that I cried uncontrollably. Not from fear, but from awe. Something about the scene had touched a part of my mind that wasn't tied to want or need. It was pure wonder, and I cried.

One night a few years ago, my wife and I were driving to a friend's house. I was trying to explain that I had never really thought about the role of firefighters or police as positive institutions. While I had little thought about firefighters, I actively disliked police. Not that I hadn't met some pretty cool cops in my youthful indiscretions, but I always considered them a barely-contained gestapo, existent only to give me tickets or bum my high.

It struck me like a bolt of lightning, after 9/11, that they had their purpose. The men in blue have the authority to tell you where to go, how to get there, and if you should stay there. The same people that I'd always considered to have some social defect in peace-time were the only ones who could direct the populace when absolutely necessary.

I tried to tell my wife that while I was still wary of cops and their totalarian power, I finally understood their purpose. The same characteristics that I've always hated and feared in the blue-clad autocrats could in fact be used for the social good. There can be times and reasons for their existence. I became overwhelmed at the realization and cried right there in the car.

The same awe has been repeated on more than one occasion: The moment my wife said "yes" to the proposal; when I saw her march down the isle; when in the middle of all havoc and hell I was handed the forceps to cut the umbilical cord...

Humans are damned by their own existence. As said in Contact, "You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares." It's a wonderful thing when we can be shocked out of our usual routine, and can be hurt or enlightened by the simple thoughts and actions around us. It's in those brief moments when we are taken out of ourselves that I believe we are closer to whatever we choose to believe as God.

And it is in Awe, when all other emotions fail, that we are, finally, Human.