the aesthetics of life

...It was a work of art and it was beautiful because he alone knew of its existence and with his death it would at once cease to be.

- W. Somerset Maugham


April's half way gone and this is my first post of the month.  The reason I haven't been writing is simply because I didn't have anything I wanted to write about -- probably because I was busy not only studying neurology but also practicing the guitar.

Surprisingly, this may be the first time I mention my guitar in this blog.  Music, for the most part, has always been a big element in my life.  The piano was the first thing I said I wanted to take lessons for.  I was four years old then, and took lessons till seventeen.  I never had any questions about it.  It wasn't always fun but I did it because I liked it.  I started the guitar a few years before I stopped taking piano lessons.  I couldn't bring my piano with me when I moved away from home for university, so I mainly practiced the guitar from then on.

But I was never passionate about it as much as the piano.  Maybe because I wasn't so passionate about music itself anymore by the time I graduated high school.  Now that I think about it, the reason is pretty clear: I started playing the guitar under the influence of a friend whose music abilities kept reminding me of my own limitations.  I just knew I could never be like her.  It was not a matter of effort.  I didn't have her ears.  After ten years, I can now tell the chords if I hear a song, but I can never learn a whole guitar piece by ear.  Nor do I have any creativity.

When I realized that, a question that had never bugged me started to raise its head: What's the whole point?  If I can play Chopin's Ballad No.1, that's great, but a bunch of other people can play it.  They would play it much better than me.  So why go through the trouble of learning twenty pages of music?  What do I gain?  What do I create?  What is there to be left if I die tomorrow?

I never put my question into words, but this feeling was probably what drove me away from music and pulled me towards writing instead.  When I was writing, I was sometimes intoxicated with my words -- no matter how useless they were, I was creating something and they would still be there if I died tomorrow.  I was looking for a meaning in life, meaning of my own existence, meaning for everything.  I was almost breathing to explain why I was breathing.

Tonight, as I went through the music sheets with frustration, the same question popped in mind.  More clearly than ever.  Why do I have to play this when so many other people can do it better?  Isn't it just another waste of time?  And of course, this question leads me to the ultimate question: why am I living my life?  So many people can do so many things better than me.  What's the point in me doing it?  Can I leave anything behind when I die?

I still have no answer.  But right now I don't think it's important anyway.  One day, the sun is going to burst and everything will disappear.  Or at least, everything will cease to be the way it is today.  Nothing is permanent.  So what does it matter if I leave nothing behind?  The obvious fact is that all we have is this moment.  Who cares if a billion other people can play the guitar better than me?  I pluck the strings because I want to.  It fills my heart with joy and lets me appreciate the moment for what it is.  No past, no future.  No greed or anxiety.  Isn't that enough?

Now I think the aesthetic nature of music also lies in that when the last note turns to silence, the whole piece disappears, leaving nothing solid behind, just like every moment of my life will cease to be with my last breath.