The existence , the physical universe is basically playful.
There is no necessity for it whatsoever , it isn’t going anywhere .
It doesn’t have a destination that it ought to arrive at .
But it is best understood by analogy with music,
because music as an art form, is essentially playful.
We say you play the piano, you don’t ‘work ‘ the piano.
Why? Music differs from, say, travel,
when you travel you are trying to get somewhere.
In music , though, one doesn’t make the end of the composition,
if so, the best conductors would be those who played fastest.
And there would be composers who only wrote finales
people would go to a concert just to hear one crackling chord
because that is the end.
Same way with dancing , You don’t aim at a particular spot in the room
because that is where you will arrive.
The whole point of dancing is the dance!
But we don’t see that as something brought by our education
into our every day conduct.
We have a system of schooling which gives a completely different impression.
It is all graded and what we do is put the child into the corridor
of this grade system with a kind of come on get it !
And you go to kindergarten and that is a great thing because,
when you finish that you get into first grade.
And the come on first grade leads to second grade and so on.
And then you get out of grade school you got high school.
And it is revving up, the thing is coming, then you are going to go to College.
And then graduate school , and when you are through with graduate school,
you go out to join the world.
Then you get into some racket where you are selling insurance,
and they have got that quota to make , and you are gonna make that.
And all the time that “thing” is coming .
It is coming , it is coming . that great “thing”
The success you are working for.
Then when you wake up one day about 40 years old and you say:
My god , I have arrived , I am there. Here it is.
And you don’t feel very different from what you have always felt.
Look at the people who live to retire, to put those savings away.
And then when they are 65 they don’t have any energy left.
Because we simply cheated ourselves the whole way down the line.
We thought of life by analogy with a journey ,with a pilgrimage,
Which had a serious purpose at the end,
and the thing was to get to that end !
Success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you are dead.
But we missed the point the whole way along…
It was a musical thing , and you were supposed to sing, or to dance.
While the music was being played….