Thang Nguyen 555

In Requiem our souls merge with Mozart’s for the last time (the piece ends with Amen, sung in unison).
He invited us and included us in his last journey – our journey.
By portraying his mortality, he marked his immortality. Billions have gone down that road, only one can still cry out from the grave.
In loss he has found, in his end, his beginning (T.S. Eliot).
Mozart did think “differently” back then despite the constraint of available media (now we can pre-tape our will, short selling our stocks way into the future etc…).
Music had only evolved up to that time in that form. Neither rap nor jazz of our century.
In his biography, Steve Jobs reminded us of an old story. The King hired an assistant whose sole job was to stay nearby and every once in while, like a parrot, utters “You will die soon”. Memento mori.
The One thing absolute.
From that vantage point looking backward, we can evaluate our options and choices much better.
Will this matter  when we are long gone?
Latest study shows social ethics are on decline and can use some tuning up.
The tyranny of our age is that while the barriers to entry are lowered for start-ups, more businesses failed by sheer statistics. On this side of the digital revolution, we can look back at those post-war years with new lenses. Corporations provided decent wages, stability and a sense of (we now called) false security. The GI Bills helped many families with education, jobs and homes. The Great Society attempt may have yet produced desired results, but at least, Lyndon declared the right war on the home front, and not “the bitch of a war that Asian boys should fight and die for their own”.
Torn between “two lovers”, LBJ rode two horses at one time.
(being from Texas and all). Now, we got Promise Zones declared right in our Los Angeles backyard.
What dilemma great men before me faced. Many screw up big time, but it only recently came to light thanks to those de-classified data.
Mozart saw ahead of the road in spite of his terminal outcome.
Knowing the end is near, he left us with a (master) piece of himself, accepting that the bell was finally told for him.
I pictured in my head a few funerals of loved ones down the road while listening to Mozart’s Requiem. That’s how much impact his music has on me.
And maybe, on second listening, I might see mine and you see yours. It’s not a Hitler’s line, left live, right die, kind of 50/50 choice. It’s nature’s allotment to all of us .
When contemplating mortality, we actually seek immortality; it’s just that, we don’t know how to go about it as Mozart did, with so much grace, and immortalized himself in the process.