Walt Whitman and the ACO

It’s interesting how wisdom is undeniably wisdom and universally true. Eternal truths are just that- they are applicable in any situation that we can possibly imagine.

I tend to have thoughts of Wagner or Nietzsche, Beethoven or Proust, J.S. Bach or Carlyle running around constantly in my head, almost like a soundtrack to my life. It is these thoughts that animate all that I do and illuminate the actions of others. I want to learn what the great minds of our civilization thought about this world so I can better understand it as well as to better comprehend myself- and isn’t wisdom really the recognition of universal truths and assimilating them into our own thoughts and actions?

So it wasn’t really surprising when, due to a number of reasons, a poem by Walt Whitman lodged itself in my consciousness this morning and refused to go away until I contemplated it further:

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse
unreturn’d love,
But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain one
way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)

How beautiful! The more deeply I delved into these lines, it was as if I was hearing them and truly understanding them for the first time. What profound and universal wisdom Whitman was expressing in these few simple words!

Loving others is always right- that undeniably is an eternal truth. And true love doesn’t require, want or expect to be returned. True love is undemanding and unselfish, concerned only with the happiness of others. Yet at the same time, loving purely and selflessly undeniably has positive results, whether that is the inspiration to write poetry, a content, happy heart and a clear conscience or the fruition on the cosmic level of heaven, nirvana or whatever your particular beliefs may hold. The wages of love are truly certain- what incredible insight, profound truths in a few scant lines of poetry!

But what has this to do with an orchestra, you ask? Everything, I say! Wisdom is wisdom, truths are truths, and Whitman’s lines (and the insights they contain) are applicable to any and every situation in life we may encounter.

As an orchestra, we must do what is right, with love- serving the music we perform and the community we represent. Our mission is service. And if we always act with love doing what is right “the pay is certain one way or another-” ultimately good things will happen. Hard work, dedication and good intentions always pay off in the end, although it may be years before the results show themselves. It might not be easy, you may be misunderstood by many, but it is a certainty that the orchestra will reap the “just rewards” of just actions done with love. It is a universal truth beyond question, beyond doubt.

“… there is no unreturn’d love…” words to live, and work, by… always.