Harmony

I like to think I can picture Zion. One heart, one mind, no poor among them, dwelling in righteousness. It sounds like harmony to me. A state of oneness that's... almost musical. Or like the flow of dancing. Or a sports team, where one player throws the ball into an open spot of field because they know their teammate will appear there to catch it. 

There's a quote I love from a book called Gates of Fire. It's a historical fiction about the battle at Thermoploae:

"We talked for hours in secret on the pursuit of esoterike harmonia, that state of self-composure which the exercises of the phobologia are designed to produce- As a string of the kithera vibrates purely, emitting only that note of the musical scale which is its alone, so must the individual warrior shed all which is superfluous in his spirit, until he himself vibrates at that sole pitch which his individual daimon dictates. The achievement of this ideal, in Lakedaemon, carries beyond courage on the battlefield; it is considered the supreme embodiment of virtue, andreia, of a citizen and a man.

Beyond esoterike harmonia lies exoterike harmonia, that state of union with one's fellows which parallels the musical harmony of the multistringed instrument or of the chorus of voices itself. In battle exoterike harmonia guides the phalanx to move and strike as one man, of a single mind and will. In passion it unites husband to wife, lover to lover, in wordless perfect union. In politics exoterike harmonia produces a city of concord and unity, in which each individual, securing his own noblest expression of character, donates this to each other, as obedient to the laws of the commonwealth as the strings of the kithera to the immutable mathematics of music. In piety exoterike harmonia produces that silent symphony which most delights the ears of the gods."

There's  a video out there somewhere of Jacob Collier explaining piano playing to different people in five levels of difficulty. The final level appears to actually be the least difficult for Jacob to explain because he's explaining it to Herbie Hancock. And they begin to communicate in a less technical way, with few words, and start to just say things like "yeah" and "then you can just..." and "if you go..." followed by some piano playing. They begin to riff off of each other. They're communicating without talking. They have one mind, one heart, neither is poor in their understanding of music. They know if one passes the proverbial ball, the other will appear in the right spot to catch it and run with it. It's magical.

You see the same thing in good jazz music, sports teams, families, friendships.

Where does the harmony come from? Why does it work sometimes and break down other times? I've experienced it in small ways many times throughout my life. And no one seemed to be trying at all to make it happen. We were all just being ourselves, and letting others be themselves. And when everyone was comfortable enough to be who they were, harmony just... happened. 

As a sidenote, I want to differentiate this from the political ideology that sort of rhymes with what I'm saying, where people act like animals (sometimes literally) to gratify their flesh and we all just accept whatever social deviancy is imagined up.  That's not what I'm talking about. And that stuff isn't really what people are anyway. It's just the shield we throw up because what we really are was hurt really bad at some point, so we make up a new version of ourselves to protect the real version. And I'm pretty sure every human alive does this. I digress...

We've all got a spirit in us that's holy. And we've all been given gifts intended to bless and benefit each other. What if it's less about developing that, and more about accepting it. What if it's already in us and fully developed, and we just need to stop fearing the judgment of others and let that holy part of us ring out? And what if we let it ring out in others without wrecking their gifts with our judgment, envy, ambition, etc. It would probably be easy if we though of ourselves as "us" and "we" as opposed to "them" and "me".

That's what I think it means to be pure in heart. At least in part. 

Anyway, I'm sort of just riffing off a stream of thoughts I've been floating down for a few days. Maybe there's something interesting in there.

Goodnight everyone. Try being who you are, so we can be who we are.