“I would say that someone who acts without paying attention to what he does is wasting his life. I would go even further and say that life itself is denied by lack of attention, whether we are talking about cleaning the windows or trying to create a masterpiece.”
Nadia Boulanger*

Have you ever heard “Besame mucho”? Of course you have: it’s one of the most famous songs in the world and, apparently, the most recorded of all time.
And you certainly know the words “Besame, besame mucho, como si fuera esta noche la ultima vez…” and implicitly, the sensation of sensuality and passion it suggests: really, how would you make love to someone you care about, if you knew it could be the last time?

An interesting aspect about this song – which is not known by everyone – is that both the lyrics and the music were written in 1940 by Consuelo Velasquez, a Mexican girl who was not even 16 years old at the time and who – according to her – had not yet kissed a man… When they say how powerful art and imagination can be…

Anyway, I think it’s worth discussing a bit on this topic. Yes, we all agree that when we know that a certain experience – for various reasons – becomes rare, limited or even unique, it suddenly turns into something precious that deserves our full attention and that we try to enjoy with all possible intensity.

Even if it’s something seemingly extremely trivial: if, due to a car accident, you found yourself stuck with your feet in plaster, how long would you miss thinking about the good times when you could walk? And if, after months of staying indoors and a hard period of re-education, you were able to get out and go for a little walk, how fantastic would it be to be back on your feet? How much would you enjoy the experience? How wonderful would you find the city? How would you enjoy looking at every detail?

All this is of course due to a simple psychological principle whereby our mind tends not to value too much what we have at hand, to consider it as a kind of “entitlement” and to place more value on what we don’t have. So it often takes a loss – or the realization of the possibility of a loss – to understand how precious anything we take for granted is.

In fact, in our opulent society, we live in a true paradox: we have more and more goods and experiences but, because we consider them banal and normal, they no longer give us any joy.

Just two of many possible examples:

-when I was a child, strawberries and cherries were eaten in May, grapes in September, oranges in December, etc., and every year when my father brought home new fruits, it was a source of joy for the whole family; I still remember how eagerly we waited for May to come and catch the first bite of strawberries. Now I can go to the supermarket and get any fruit I want at any time of the year. Yeah, very convenient, but…where is the joy?

-Today, everywhere we go, we are surrounded by music: in theaters, discos and bars obviously, but also in shops, subways, on the street, at home,… there is always a radio, a TV, a .. and if there isn’t, we have iPod with headphones. We can’t conceive of a world without music. And yet… until a hundred years ago it wasn’t like that. The world was silent. Can you imagine? If someone wanted to listen to music, someone had to play it. If you didn’t live in the city, you could go months, years without listening to any music, except a song, on Sunday at mass.

Can you imagine what effect the simple act of listening to a symphony or an opera would have had on a human being? What a fantastic and unique experience, knowing that the moment will be lost anyway because it cannot be fixed and will exist only in memory? How carefully and concentrated would you listen to each note?
(I am reminded, as a matter of fact, that Wagner received the score of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony when he was 20 and finally managed to listen to it when he was 40… )

What’s interesting in all this discussion is that what changes is not the experience itself (be it sex, music, food, etc.), but only our perception; this means that to have a fantastic experience, full of joy and passion, it doesn’t need a specific experience, but a simple change of perception: that is, we just want it to be like that, we just give all our attention to the present moment!

I know, we live in a society in which we have everything, the phone rings endlessly, thousands and thousands of more or less important daily chores fight for our attention, advertising messages scream incessantly “Look at me”, and our mind is always busy with “something else”, we always have the feeling that happiness is “somewhere else”, with the result of always being in a state of apathy and boredom.

The mobile phone is the perfect example to illustrate this permanent distraction, of valuing a possible “something else” more than the present situation: how many times have you gone out with friends, and then always someone in the gang is talking on the cell phone to “someone else”?

Someone once wrote that heaven is here and now and if we don’t feel it, it’s because we are never really here and now; and only when circumstances require it we manage to realize how precious is every thing, every moment we live and that we neglect by our lack of attention.

I have written elsewhere that when we focus our attention on something we give it power, and when we give attention to someone we raise their energy level (in fact any magical ritual is just a method of focusing attention); and, precisely because it raises energy and directs it, attention may be the greatest force in the Universe, on which our perceived reality ultimately depends.

So, the next time we make love, eat something, play with the baby, talk to someone, watch something, go for a walk or just “sit”, why don’t we try to do it “como si fuera esta noche la ultima vez”?

If we succeed, it means we have taken another step – a big one this time – towards understanding magic.

Cheers,

Bruno

*Although little known to the general public, Nadia Boulanger is one of the most extraordinary figures of the last century.
For those who want to learn more: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Boulanger