Translator: Christopher Vidler Reviewer: Denise RQ
In the struggle to navigate the tumultuous waters of our lives,
how easily we forget that being radical
(Bass playing)
is simply interrupting what we call normal
is disrupting our day-to-day clingings.
(Bass accompaniment playing during the talk)
It's an awakening to a new light,
to see anew the ordinary world that enchants us,
or clobbers us with its heavy rolling pins,
or pounds in the hinge pins that allow the giant doors
to shut out the world of light,
or cut off the world inside,
all scuffed up with darkness and worry.
Boldly we must return from that darkness and that ordinariness,
to announce to the world
what it feels like to kick down the door,
or open the door and finally come face to face
with something you've never seen before,
but always felt deep inside.
But in the struggle to navigate the tumultuous waters of our lives,
once we've kicked down that door, once we've shoved it aside,
once we see what potentiality lay at our feet,
to whom do we call out to, whom whisper our most intimate feelings,
whom share the canticles of the heralding angels?
Unscrew the locks from the doors,
unscrew the doors from the jambs themselves.
But to unhinge those pins is a difficult thing,
all calcified and rusted,
built in the castle moats and walls by our own cagey minds.
And from such a place, how do we escape?
We cannot do it alone.
We need one to unfurl the sail,
one to give directions,
come about and tack, tack,
each helping each help themselves.
After all, a candle cannot be lit without a match,
and what use is a match if it's struck and burns out alone?
So we need to conjoin our strengths,
set aside our individual egos to make life more fecund,
to eliminate the limitless fears our limited minds forge.
Even in the humdrum acts,
we need others to negotiate the diurnal maze of the ordinary.
Have you ever been in a grocery store,
and locked eyes with a perfect stranger,
and in that instant, become fluent
in that incommunicable light that burns in each of us,
desperate, and strange, and beautiful,
and each of you ascended to a more lofty, more humane place?
Sometimes, it's a matter of light that keeps us alive,
and sometimes, it's a matter of light that reveals our connectedness.
(Bass interlude)
Because of this,
in the struggle to navigate the tumultuous waters of our lives,
we have to remind ourselves that being radical
isn't just being a provocateur.
Being radical means merely being human,
finite, and compassionate, and befuddled,
and bound to each other by our desires for love;
and being human is the most significant collaboration
we all participate in,
because being human is shared by all humans.
The sensible way is to have one light the match,
one to hold the candle,
one to unfurl the sail,
one to work the rudder,
one to make the instrument sing,
and one to turn our lives into poetry.
After all, what would happen if we didn't collaborate?
We seek others
to make the weight of our lives light,
to create something
I myself or you yourself,
could never do alone.
How else can we make beautiful music together?
(Final bass note playing)
Thank you.
(Applause)