I’m a firm believer that no matter how old any of us get, we should never let ourselves get so jaded or cynical that we become incapable of finding sheer joy in the simplest of wonders in our everyday lives.
Whether it’s something that makes us smile time and time again out of familiarity, or it’s something we’re experiencing for the first time that makes our eyes bulge out and our jaws drop to the floor; we shouldn’t lose that ability to have our minds opened up to new things that blow us away.
Take last Friday night, for example. I took my mother out to a show at the Civic Centre in town. Scott Woods, a world-renowned champion fiddler and musician, was in town with his incredible band and put on a fantastic concert that gave people all their favorite holiday tunes and plenty of great, old-fashioned and old-time country music.
Looking out at the crowd during the intermission, I thought it was really interesting to see such a range of generations. Predominantly older people, sure, but there were pockets of younger people here and there, and the most refreshing sight of all was seeing young kids sitting up front and center for the show.
People, I’m telling you, these kids had a ball seeing this kind of music up live and personal!
Scott and his band put on a hell of a show on the stage, but my mother and I couldn’t help but look over at these young kids who were just taking all of it in, and we got a kick out of seeing their mouths literally gaping open at some of the stuff that the band was doing on the stage. When Woods got up on a barrel and played the fiddle while rolling across the stage, you’d have thought one little girl was going to lose her eyeballs because they were popping so huge out of her head! We couldn’t help but laugh, but it was for the purest of reasons on our part.
It was fantastic to see such an engagement from such a young generation in music that normally wouldn’t attract all that much attention from our newer generations of kids growing up today. It’s safe to say that we may have seen a future musician of some sort sitting a row over from us on that night. I suppose time will tell!
But that’s the kind of emotion I’m talking about. When you’re seeing something for the first time, and all your little inhibitions and insecurities just go flying out the window because THIS is something that has snatched your full attention, and nothing else in the known universe is more important than what’s happening in front of your very eyes in that very moment.
We’re living in a world today where we’re losing that kind of innocent wonder. Instead of going out to a fiddle concert, we’d rather sit at home on some random electronic device and disengage with the rest of the outside world. We seem to have stopped seeking out new things that have given us that ‘eyepopper’ moment that this little girl at a concert in Outlook had last week. To me, that’s a shame.
I’ve had plenty of ‘eyepopper’ moments myself, and I remember them fondly. You tend to remember them because they’re the things that opened up your mind and subconscious to a proverbial ‘whole new world’. A few examples:
My first pro wrestling event. As a fan of this crazy, male soap opera form of entertainment all my life, it goes without saying that I was very much looking forward to seeing it live and up close when I was a kid. It didn’t disappoint. Every body slam, dropkick and suplex was mesmerizing to 9-year old me back in 1994, and I still retain a bit of that feeling whenever I go to a live show today.
My first time seeing the movie ‘Jurassic Park’. I’d always been fascinated with dinosaurs, and by the time Steven Spielberg’s epic film hit theaters in the summer of 1993, I was almost shaking with anticipation at the mere thought of seeing them “for real”.
My first live music concert. It was the touring festival known as Summersault back in the summer of 2000. Heck of a great lineup, and to get to hear the music I’d listened to for years up close was a real treat that I’ve never forgotten.
In a world where too many of us are getting far too cynical on every social media network and on every device being cranked out to the masses, I truly feel we need to channel our inner ‘Little Girl at Fiddle Concert’.
Don’t forget those ‘eyepopper’ moments in your life. Give yourself new ones.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
