Emotional Rejuvenation

I find, perhaps more often than I would like, that there are days when my mind is in a rut--when there's nothing particularly irking me or getting me down, but when my mind simply cannot kickstart itself. I'm learning more and more over time that this really isn't a problem with my mind but rather one result of a need for an emotional stirring. Perhaps almost as much as food itself, the evoking of our emotions is a form of sustenance--sustenance of one's being.

Today, I watched a Kultur videorecording of Bernstein rehearsing Mahler 9, entitled Four Ways to Say Farewell. Bernstein's understanding of the piece, his concept of Mahler's saying "farewell" to human love, to society, and to life itself, is utterly convincing. There is a common perception that Mahler had a preoccupation with his own death, but Bernstein was able to recreate that preoccupation in a remarkably human way, rather than in the caricaturish manner in which we typically view it. Bernstein himself is often viewed as a caricature, prone to histrionics and self-absorption. Perhaps that is part of what allowed him such empathy for Mahler.

As the last few strains faded in the last movement, evocative of the final struggle to hold onto life and then the calm acceptance of death, my heart dropped into my stomach. In that moment, I felt as if I finally knew Mahler, as if I were a wide-eyed child, led hand-in-hand by a parent into this intimate understanding of a dying person. From that, I once again felt truly alive.