Creativity Friday: Hidden in plain sight

I’m on vacation until April 22. In the meantime, I’ve set up some old favorites on this blog. This post seems appropriate for Creativity Friday—it reminds us of the importance of really paying attention to the world around us. Otherwise, who knows what inspiration we might miss?

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A friend forwarded me this article today from the Washington Post about Joshua Bell, one of the most brilliant violinists of our time. As an experiment — or PR stunt, you decide — Bell was asked to perform as a busker for 45 minutes during rush hour in L’Enfant Plaza, a major Washington DC Metro station.

The concept: To see if genius would be recognized if hidden in plain sight.

The disguise: None. Unless you count Bell wearing street clothes instead of concert formal a subterfuge.

The instrument: Bell’s beloved Gibson ex Huberman, which was crafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari. This violin is considered one of the greatest stringed instruments created by perhaps the greatest luthier who ever lived.

I’m sure you could guess what happened. Of the more than one thousand people who passed Bell as he performed, only several stopped to listen. And only one person recognized him. For his efforts, Bell received a measly $32.17 in hand outs — about $40 an hour.

So why didn’t anyone pay attention to Bell’s free concert? It wasn’t the Metro’s accoustics — Bell said they were particularly resonant. Nor was he slouching — he thought that he played particularly well on some especially difficult pieces, such as Bach’s Chaconne.

One theory that comes to my mind is that the number of people who stopped were in proportion to classical music lovers everywhere. Or that many of the commuters were plugged into their iPods, unable to hear anything outside of their chosen aural environment. More likely, it was that they were so used to quickly classifying (excuse the pun!) whatever stimuli reaches their senses down to its most basic info-byte to save time: I see a violinist, is he asking me for money? Will he slow me down? Am I running late? Will I get to work on time? This is a common survival mechanism for city dwellers (and I’m guilty of it myself). There’s just so much going on around you at all times that you filter things. Otherwise, you’d just be overwhelmed with Too Much Information and become strained and drained from the effort of processing it all.

Still, it’s so sad to consider that so many people missed such an experience of beauty. And it was there, right in front of them for the taking.

I was thinking about this strange-but-true story this afternoon, as my toddler daughter searched for easter eggs that we had hidden for her to find. Tom and I were careful to hide them in easily accessible places, so Thea would find them without becoming frustrated. Thea was so persistant as she hunted. Yet every so often, an egg would elude her, even though it was right there before her eyes. It was almost too obvious, too easy, even for a two year old with a limited attention span.

These sort of events, great and small, makes me wonder how often we stumble across gifts of beauty and inspiration, hidden in plain sight. It makes me wonder how many I’ve missed along the way, because I was too busy or too preoccupied with the soundtrack of my thoughts.

Sometimes all we can hope for are eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to recognize.

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