turmoil, peace and hope for the future...

The baby bird and I went for an early morning walk in the fields and woods across from our house as she was resltess and I couldn't sleep anyway. It was really beautiful. We saw no-one but lots of rabbits and birds and one of our cats followed us for a while...the baby bird fell asleep really early on and I began to feel peaceful with the rhythm of walking on the gravelly path the only sound in my ears.

I had a weird day yesterday. I was working which was nice but I couldn't stay in the moment. Do you get times when you feel like you are divided from the world by a big invisible blanket and you can't quite become involved in things? You feel like you are watching everything (including yourself) from a spectator's gallery.... yesterday I couldn't feel anything other than I was watching a film of my life - which usually would be fine but when you are playing in a symphony orchestra you need to concentrate more than that state of mind allows. It got to the point where in the concert I felt like there was no-one in the (packed) concert hall but me - even though I could see the thousands of people in the audience they didn't seem real. And so then when we came to a piece where I had a fairly prominent solo (Ravel's Bolero of all things) I suddenly got really nervous. I never get nervous in concerts but my heart was pounding and my knees were beginning to shake and my breathing became shallow -all because I couldn't focus my mind on what I was doing at all - instead of me concentrating I found myself talking to myself saying all sorts of irrelevant and distracting things and it was only down to, well, I don't know what that I got through it with no mistakes and no-one knew what turmoil I had passed through. Why did this happen? After the concert as I was driving home I came back to the moment and was mildly depressed about my experience. I like to think that I can be in some degree of control over my mental self but yesterday I had none at all.....

I'm reading a brilliant book - 'Conversations on the edge of the Apocalypse' - it's conversations with the world's most important thinkers about their ideas on the future of humanity...whether we will wipe ourselves out or whether we are on the edge of a renaissance. I love it because these people are so desperatley clever that I find myself believing them all as I am swept up in their discussion even if they contradict my feelings - this makes me try harder to form my own opinions more strongly and to use the intelligence and wisdom of others to help me see how I can be a responsible human and be as constructive in my daily living as possible. Noam Chompsky is amazing. When I have finished this book I am going to read lots of his writing - I think he is a brilliantly clear and humane mind.