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If God Would Have,,,
By joseexist in Musings On Muses
October 4, 2009

If God would have kept the heaven and earth a secret, where would he have put us? If Leonardo had never made the Mona Lisa smile, would we have been as fascinated with it? When you hear a new song do you realize what someone has gone thru to create it? What if they had decided to keep it a secret? What if the record company decided it wasn’t the right time for such a song? Many things we experience today could just as well have never made it out of the realm of thought. The vestibules of electrochemical processes can easily create ideas from sensory input as well as from random thoughts, or even the lack thereof. When ideas take shape and we commit them to reality, the distances we are prepared to go with them should never be considered lightly. Where would we be today if God had kept it all to himself?

Some people are afraid of certain concepts. I’m sure more than a few bibles are in hand right now, drawn back and secured with a trip hammer. I don’t question God. Not ever. My “what if”, was one of many “unanswerables” we are all free to consider. We as a species want to know how things work. It fits well into that category. As close as I can come to an answer is to say that I’m glad he chose to share his great idea.

The point I’m trying to make here is one about what creative persons sometimes do with a great idea. They don’t always share it with the world. How many great works of art were only found after the artist had died. The world discovered a trove of treasures that had been stored away from our eyes in the hope that we would probably never see them. Leonardo Da Vincis’ many sketches of inventions and anatomy, war machines and more, complete with handwritten and secretly coded notes deciphered by mirror, are among these things. How many musicians are still releasing music long after their death? Hendrix is still my favorite in that category. We may think we know everything there is to know about someone like, Albert Einstein, Michelangelo, Neil Pert, or even our best friend, but the truth is we know only what is above the surface. So how much “stuff” is there, hidden away in some dark corner of a closet or safety deposit box? How much creativity have we been deprived of from dreamers throughout time?

All other art forms aside, when a songwriter writes a new tune they sometimes hold it back for fear of someone “stealing” it. Indeed, and I will name none of the ones I know, there are some top selling artists without an original song in their discography. You probably have them in your collection. The original creators of those songs trusted someone to get a demo into an executive’s hand. In the end, without a copyright or any concrete way to prove it was theirs, they were hit with the brick, so to speak, when they realized their song was a number one hit by the same artist they had entrusted with their creation.

To get your music or other artistically expressed idea copy written, there is a process, and fees to go along with it. The last time I checked, most unknown artists could not realistically afford to do this. Sure, the big dogs have a lot of money and time to do it with but when they do it they usually copy write things for themselves. Successful artist can afford it as well. It’s an “operating cost” that looks good on the books and also lends credence to that slick packaging they can also afford to use. The undiscovered have to make do by other means. Sometimes that means keeping everything super-secret for as long as possible. Sometimes that veil is never lifted. We won’t feel it, but the world becomes something a little less when that happens.

Now that you know this, will you try to “feel” it? What did the first music sound like? Did Neanderthal man bang sticks and bones together? Was it a clapping of hands? Was it a rhythmic grunting? Come forward in time. What were the first notes to fly from the fingertips of Beethoven? What were the last notes he ever heard? Come forward again. What did Hendrix see when he threw his head back and pushed that note thru the clouds and into outer space? What did Janis see when she closed her eyes and whispered that rare soft section of words straight from her heart? There’s enough music in the world for us to be able to hear a new song each day for probably more than a lifetime, but there is still a lot that has never survived the ravages of time or the swords of oppression. The extinction of artistic creations whether known or not, still leaves a void. Some we can easily know about, others, we just know something is missing and not what it exactly is.