Not for Everyone

An Amazing Afro-Sino Recital

The Afro-Sino Dreams recital with Anesu, Bell, and Sabelo. A fusion of Eastern, African, and European Instruments as played by masters of their crafts. I was blown away!

I was asking for something or someone to help me and take me out of myself into my surroundings. My prayers were heard when one of my acquaintances and soon to be great friend and collaborator - he doesn’t know it yet - Anesu Ndoro was announced to be performing a recital. The recital was called the Afro-Sino Dreams, a fusion between African Instruments - string and drums and more, Chinese Guqin (A friend of the Zither) and the European Piano. They called it, “A trans-continental, cross cultural musical experience,” and it was. Flanked by two other maestros, Anesu delivered a performance I have dreamt of putting together someday. He keeps beating me to my musical dreams and I love him all the more for it. They sang Nhemamusasa, they Played my favorite Cornfield Chase by Hans Zimmerman, they lulled me into a sleeping trance with Talking with Gods on Guqin, then they had me chuckling and dancing along with Pamusasa Pamagudo, Wena Zula, and Uthando Luphelile. In the middle of the performance the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), the national TV camera crew showed up which made the show feel even more special. I mean it already felt “first of its kind” like “first of his name” kingly type of show but the news crew added a national recognition element to it all. This first of its kind show - in my experience and humble opinion - was actually getting national interest, as it rightly should. Was I happy at the show, I don’t know, but I was delighted by the concept and its execution. Most of all I was grateful to be drawn out of myself and my woes to experience the phenomena outside, the ones perceived by the five senses, as the Platonic Giants would say, “Things one can crush with one’s hands.”

I met Anesu sometime last year at the USAP Community School. For those who aren’t aware, the USAP School is the culmination of years of the USAP Program which helped me get an education in the USA. The program basically kicked off this newsletter by allowing me to spend over 10 years abroad before coming home. The School was founded by the visionary Amai Mano who recently was awarded a well deserved honorary doctorate from her alma mata Amherst College. A few weeks back we had a potluck to celebrate her achievement. It was a wonderful time flowers given, speeches too and fun was had as was good food. Anyway, back to Anesu, I met him at the USAP Community school last year and was wowed by his knowledge of the Mbira and Zimbabwean traditional music in general. Little did I know the man was a self taught music genius who was re-constructing instruments from across southern africa and playing them which was revealed at the recital. At the USAP Community School he put together a combination of traditional and modern instruments creating an orchestra I have dreamed of for years and they played the day I was there. I danced my heart out! This orchestra is something that I would like to one day incorporate into an opera or two and some symphonies based on African stories. Beethoven would be proud so would Chaminuka the great mbira player and rainmaker.

Various Instruments by Anesu! Made and played by Anesu. And then him accompanying the Guqin and Piano with them.

Now this recital did take me out of myself but it also made me contemplate something about life. You see, this music recital was amazing but not everyone might be able to appreciate it or enjoy it. It was not for everyone. This thought sparked an avalanche of others that maybe took me back to the world inside I keep trying to escape. You see, Anesu took to music years ago, and that has been his “thing” and other adjacent things such as writing and traditional dancing and teaching it all. I have friends who enjoy cooking, others law and its way of codifying the world, others enjoy fashion and dressmaking, while others love the art of the deal and setting up businesses. Some people enjoy the outdoors and wild-life, while others love farming, and still others photography. All this to say, not all things are for everyone. People have indeed been encouraging others to get an education while also recognizing that for some, their future lies in sport or creative works. In other words, more and more people are recognizing that maybe school is not for everyone. Many if not all music genres are not for everyone, art pieces the same, not for everyone. I may even be an acquired taste as a person, not for everyone. Even coming home to settle whether to Zimbabwe or another country of origin after years away, is not for everyone. Some are meant to and do decide to never come back though they may visit, and others don’t even visit, while some come back only to leave running, and others do choose to come back and they stay. Not for everyone!

But the one thing we all seem to believe is for everyone, is happiness. Maybe not everyone will reach it but there is an underlying belief or assumption that it’s meant for everyone besides Hitler and others like him of course. Any other view opposing happiness being for everyone may be taken not as a legitimate rational unbiased view but a cynical, or pessimistic, or other biased notion of a view. Even “realistic” in this commentary is dismissed as a disguise for jaded view when it comes to anyone who may challenge that happiness is for everyone.

But what if happiness is not for everyone, not as a cynical, pessimistic, but rational fair question?

What if making happiness for everyone we are actually dooming people to increased misery instead, and by accepting its not for everyone we are freeing people?

I wondered this week on a call with a friend of mine, M. What if instead of happiness one made another thing the ultimate. Like if someone decided that their ultimate is having a purpose or making an impact, rather than being happy. How might that make tough days different. This is simplistic but an attempt at an illustration: For those whose goal is happiness a tough day - Like getting heartbroken - may be a day without happiness hence not good even if one is making an impact or walking in purpose. But for those whose goal maybe impact, a tough day may be glorious in the effort to overcome it and make that impact. Or for those whose goal is purpose, they may feel at peace on a tough day because though it is rough and they are unhappy they are walking in their purpose. Of course there are days of being off course and not on purpose but I am comparing the days when unhappiness visits.

I mean, it just seems like making happiness what we all deserve or what we are reaching for, could just be a recipe for disaster. Maybe we are meant to have the poor among us forever in the same way we are meant to have unhappy people among us forever. Someone has to play that role. We are meant to have ill people among us, someone has to play that role. We need musicians, we need politicians, bus drivers, pilots, soldiers, powerful people, weak people, sad people, happy people, terrorists - maybe not terrorist but you get the point - someone needs to play these roles though in the end none of any of these roles are for everyone. Why can’t happiness be the same, not for everyone?

Once upon a time I read Pensees, by the great Pascal when I was in college. At one point he claims that we are all miserable people when we are left to think upon ourselves, and that we seek distractions to avoid this wretchedness. That even purpose, or impact, or the search for happiness in games, adventures, and movies may all be attempts at distraction. I remember trying that idea on for size, truly admitting and accepting I was miserable. I found myself free of the struggle to be happy and free of the constant judging and measuring my state of being. Dare I say, that by admitting I was miserable, I found a lightness of existence that rivaled what I imagined to be happiness. No, I wasn’t happy, but I was free of some of the things that made me unhappy which are associated with a goal to be happy. When people asked me how I was, it didn’t bother me to say, “Not okay” as it would before when my goal was to be happy. Without these adjacents I realized I was miserable Goldilocks style, just right. Without phantom reasons not to be okay, I was miserable without the extra baggage of judging my state as wrong, and the dissatisfaction with it. I was like a person in love with another, not an idea of them, I was miserable without an idea of misery being wrong or a bad state as it is opposed to happiness. All this to say, maybe happiness is not for everyone, and for those whose lot it is to be miserable, the sooner they recognize and accept it, the sooner they can live in a lighter world. Still miserable but less so. Maybe, the weight I feel and have felt for most of my existence is not something to escape but something to accept like the rising of the sun when you still want to sleep. Many do choose to scream at the sun, some grumpily wake up silently angry at the sun, and others accept what is and move…all three do get up. Maybe I am meant to be here playing the role of the miserable right now and that’s alright.

I am making friends with boredom instead and her good friend silence. Not finding joy in solitude but like a ship on ice, simply breaking my way through the ice so I can keep moving forward. Grieving in Action or M.I.A, Miserable in Action! More on this maybe next week. This week I enjoyed a performance by Anesu and friends and it was incredible. I am sure other people would not enjoy this magical performance because its not for everyone. Just as I am coming to believe that happiness is not for everyone and that’s okay. Some were born for purpose, others for impact, and others for both and happiness and so on, but it’s not all for everyone. Maybe?