Attracted to Tchaikovsky?

This weekend I saw a concert at Carnegie Hall. I’m not much for classical music; the emotional quality seems to escape me. What’s the purpose of art if not to inspire feelings? Brahms is so dreadfully heavy it gives me emotional amnesia. Mozart seems mathematical, mechanical even. Beethoven is all hot and bothered about something that alludes me altogether. And Tchaikovsky never spoke to me before, but somehow this Saturday’s performance was different. The featured artist of the evening was a 16-year-old violin virtuoso who, in addition to gaining international acclaim for his musical skills, has raised over 1.4 million dollars to support MS research; and he, himself, works in a lab at Stonybrook College helping to find a cure for this neurological disease… Yeah, aside from feeling horribly inadequate and under-accomplished in the presence of this young man, everything about his performance was attractive. How on earth did he hold my attention to something for which I have no affection? The sheer novelty and shock of his resume accounted for maybe ten minutes, but his performance lasted close to ninety, and every one was riveting.

I once dated a woman who came to life at her laptop. Of course, she was beautiful, smart, eccentric, etc. outside the confines of her writing routine; but she was at her most attractive when she got to work. Her brows would furrow, eyes would squint through her adorable glasses, and all of her attention focused forward. It was magic to watch her write. She would reach for things around her without glancing away from her screen. She could open a soda-bottle and drink from it without missing one beat while proofreading. She could light a cigarette and smoke the whole thing without losing her train of thought. The rhythm of her hands on the keys, the intensity of her stare, everything about her was engaging. It was as though the pressure of her deadlines brought all of her beauty right to the surface. It was captivating to watch.

Focus & discipline are sexy. Confidence, commitment, and uncompromising integrity are undeniably attractive. PASSION, PASSION is what draws people in; those who are passionate—be it about physics, comics, chapstick or slapstick—are attractive. Passion is passion. If someone can get concentrated & controlled, excited and ecstatic all at once, they can take anyone’s interest. It’s that combination of enthusiasm and direction that pulls attention like the current of a massive, moving body of water. It’s immutably entrancing.

Maybe I’m impatient, maybe I’m weird—maybe I’m even a little bit emotionally masochistic, but guarded people bore me. Give me raw. Give me exposed. Give me naked intensity, every day. I want someone who listens intently. I want someone who treats a conversation like a tennis match, like a tight-rope walk, something to be done with great care and attention. But of course that’s not all. This person should touch me like I’m a book that she wrote, like she owns the rights. When someone listens to our words, we feel respected. When that same person listens to our bodies, we feel real. There’s something about a physical connection with another person that gives a sense of location—like a confirmation that we are sentient, corporal beings with discernable, definite positions in space.

There have been weeks in my life where I have gone without a hug. There have been months without a kiss in them. And certainly, there have been years without sex. It’s at these times that I feel myself floating adrift in space, alone in the world—or at least inside my own head—and it’s not until I feel the pull of someone else’s grasp, of that attraction to another human being, that I begin to get my bearings once again. If I am not fortunate enough to be scooped up, to be reined in by another person, my only other cure for this nomadic, transient state of mind is: work. If I can ground myself in work, devote myself to some craft, give in to some project or endeavor, I can remain on earth. My passion for said project can then either be witnessed by others—thus making me appear attractive (and hopefully finding the cure twofold); or, I can transfer the enthusiasm for this project to any object affecting my attention. But the key is to do so somehow by accident, or at least by happenstance.

When there is a sense of self-awareness, when there is a self-conscious element to any performance, to any exhibition of behavior, the attractive quality is dead. Any sort of indicated passion, any performance of integrity, is repulsive. We sense the falsity, we are repelled by the insult to our instincts. Instead of feeling the tide pull us into its flow, we see still waters moved merely by a lazy breeze, and we are unconvinced to dive in—after all, if we are at the mercy of the wind, we don’t know which direction our vessels will take.

This boy held my attention because he was focused, his direction was clear, and he played the music with enthusiasm, with passion. It was his pure, raw spirit that drew me in, turns out passion can make anything exciting...even Tchaikovsky.