When I hear the word “boring” I think of the excellent TV-series “Sherlock” with Benedict Cumberbatch. Sherlock, as he is portrayed there, is really a character: outlandish, brilliant, weird, nerdy.
“Harmonious” is hardly a word I would use, though.
When I have something to print, which often happens, I go to a print shop run by some Arab guys. We have developed a warm feeling between us. Especially one of the boys (he can be around 30) is SO simpatico.
When I had an errand there today I noted, more than usual, his harmoniousness. It´s not like he is saintly or holy. It´s that… things are in place. There is a lack of neurosis, he has a natural and warm smile, is soft spoken without sophistication, friendly but un-businesslike (even though he is in business).
Being near him I saw myself clearer. Saw my disharmonies, how much more like Sherlock I am, complicated, complicating, looking for originality, having moments of genius but even more moments of boredom.
If you ask me: Would you like to trade lives with the Arab friend? [always a good question to ask when admiring somebody] I would probably say “no”. No. His harmony is his, and my (to speak PC-lingo) “differently harmonious” life is mine. But I am opening up to what he has and is, appreciate it more, not saying “boring” about it.
Complication, what a seductive quality that is for some of us! Some individuals, but also some groups and even whole domains.
I am thinking of how uninteresting and even prohibited harmony has become in the domain of modern music. Disharmony, dissonance, augmented fourths and major sevenths, clusters, etc. have all become normality. I suspect the same goes for modern poetry, though I have little contact with it.
Generally, in modern art disharmony and complication are not only more interesting but somehow also finer and on a higher level than harmony. Going astray is “better” than never leaving your home, to be alienated is more “cultured” than being happy about the world.
Oh, how I recognize myself in this. Now I begin to see that I am actually trendy, in harmony with this disharmony – though tiring of it.
I need to print more documents to get near that Arab friend and have some of his niceness rub off on me.
