I feel out of time. Do you? This feeling is a lot different than feeling like one has “run” out of time. What I mean becomes clearer further down.

A couple years ago, an experiment was run to see if a brilliant, genius-level violinist would be recognized in a washington DC subway as a busker. Here’s the summary:

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning.He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till without stopping and continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly late for work.

The one who paid the most attention… was actually a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along hurriedly, but the child stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.

He collected $37.

When he finished playing and silence took over, no one really noticed it.
No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and the priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

- Summary taken from: Ego Dialogues

My personal experiences.

Throughout my life I’ve given 5s, 10s, and 20s to street musicians as I pass by for any number of reasons: to demonstrate generosity and abundance, to surprise them or brighten their week, possibly because I connect/chat with them or I’m simply feeling good about it. I’ve also given bits of change, or often a smile. It is totally possible that the smile itself ‘does’ more or is appreciated more than the money, consciously or unconsciously. It’s also possible that the money could inspire more or go farther than a smile. Examples can be cited wherein the busker needs some sort of kick-in-the-ass to choose a more lucrative life direction, and it would be best to facilitate that by not offering money. There have also been times when I’ve ignored them completely because I’m in a mood of some kind, or in a rush. Any number of things can happen. The beauty, is in doing whatever feels right.

Also, I’ve created awesome art, writing, etc., since as far back as I can remember, and I feel that currently its pretty universal, that no matter WHAT art one creates, it will have an audience of people who are ready and able to appreciate it and to ‘get’ it, and there will be a body of people who are not ready or able to appreciate it. The ratio for these groups can be higher or lower depending on what art one creates, among other factors. Most often, ‘pop’ artists with a certain ‘mass appeal’ are appreciated by a much larger group of people, and yet that demographic generally appears to be unfocused, lethargic, and relatively ineffective at promoting change in life. The lesser-appreciated ‘high-end’ or ‘genius’ artists are often connected with and understood by only a select few, yet those select few are very often the ‘movers and shakers’ of the world. The affluent celebrities and the ‘powerful.’ Again, all this from my experience. Of course, it might be interesting to study the even fewer people who are able to transcend group division and somehow appeal to practically everybody.

What does it mean?

The publishing of this experiment generated buzz, humongous buzz, the buzz of a quadrillion bees! Well, likely not that much buzz, but suffice to say, the media was talking. Some of the proposed things to take from this were:

"If God started preaching at a subway station how many people would stop and listen and how many would think he’s just another nut?"
"Reporter Astonished By Common Knowledge: Yes, people on their way to work are generally in a hurry."
"This episode illustrates a key difference between DC and New York. I suspect the outcome would have been very different in Manhattan."
"Most people probably can’t tell the difference between the best professional violinist and the median professional violinist unless, maybe, they stopped to listen carefully."
" Music, after all, ‘moves only in time.’ Most people passing by that station that morning had no time." (emphasis added)

Each of us has an opportunity to take an individual lesson from every situation, but the one I’d like to focus on is the emphasized line above. There is so much incredible beauty going on around us all the time, and in Toronto (and no doubt other big cities,) a huge portion of the population choose to focus on worry, stress, deadlines, minutes, seconds. I hear people expressing that they never have time to do the things they love. They say they can’t create the art or music they love. They say that they have no time to exercise or cook wonderful meals. Similar to above, they can’t stop to appreciate an artist in a subway doing their best to touch someone’s heart.

When I was younger and living a completely different state than the one I live now, I used to tell people "Hey, I’d love to stop and talk to [the buskers, homeless, or canvassers] but I’ve got places to be and things to do."

This wasn’t 100% true. I had plans sure, but implying I had no choice and that I could not change priorities or focus on another human being for a few minutes demonstrated my mindset of fear and lack of trust. It said that I didn’t trust the people in my circles (clients, friends, family) to understand or care if I showed up a bit late because I stopped to connect with someone. It said that I didn’t trust anything to work out in my favour when I took a small risk. Stopping to chat might’ve resulted in an amazing affluent business contact in the music industry, or a new and valuable friend, or an introduction to his beautiful and loving daughter. It’s me saying 5 minutes of my time isn’t risk-able.

I’m not suggesting everyone stop what they’re doing all the time, only that people look inside themselves and see if they’ve been dismissive out of habit or fear of something they never really noticed. …If in my heart, I felt it was truly vital to not even be a few minutes late to wherever my destination was, then following that feeling is key, but for me to rationalize all the beauty, opportunities, experiences, and new connections available around me away with the phrase "I have no time" now feels like a pretty ‘low-level’ choice to me.

An experiment to try: Pay attention to yourself in the next little while and see how often you find yourself saying "I don’t have the time", "I’d love to but I’m too busy", or simply walking in a determined rush, head-down, and closed to anything going on around you. The results may surprise you

Many people feel like they’re running out of time, and I’d love for the same people to feel completely out of time, completely outside of the limits of time, as if it were a tool they could choose to use, or not, depending on whether it suits them in any given situation. Perhaps then, the world would see more love and care and big moves and cool risks and interesting stories and beautiful creations.

"Well open up your mind and see like me,
open up your plans and damn you’re free,
look into your heart and you’ll find love" – Jason Mraz

I know you’re all reading,

share your thoughts, feelings, feedback and stories!

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