Do we need this? All this seriousness, rigor, performance and success? Of course we need them. Unfortunately. Because we have grown up, and as the green sprouts harden as they grow, so have we grown pale and crusty. We have lost our flexibility and brag to ourselves being strong and invincible. But no: the windstorm that only bends a green sprout, would rattle the trunk of a tree crackling. We withered, we learned to “sleeping with indifference”.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” P. Picasso (Illustration by Dave Weiss)
But still there must be an inexpressible hope, an overwhelming expectation, an unquenchable excitement: here comes life, and what I will have is like nothing I have ever had before! This is how we wait for adulthood as children, and what we wait for will never really come. This wonderland can only exist in the mind of a child, in the depths of a dense forest of mysteries and secrets, a magnificent castle: the life to come.
We must never lose this castle, we must protect it and cherish it: just as a prisoner, in the depths of a prison trying to preserve his sanity, dreams of gardens, lakes, sunshine and love with his eyes closed, so we must descend, day after day, with force, into the depths of childhood, to wander through the forest of secrets and mysteries, to admire the palace of imagination, to believe in life hidden in the eternal tomorrow.
Well, I believe, this is exactly what art is for. To lead us back to the source, to turn the cold, woody bark into a green sprout again, to believe in fairy tales, in magic, in man, for several ninety minutes at least… so that the faded sparkle returns to our eyes.
Youth concerts by Máté Hámori and the Danubia Orchestra >>>
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Author: Máté Hámori
