An Unexpected "First..."

At the start of the Ethiopian new year, I had devised a list of activities that I wanted to perform for the first time ever as part of my "quarter-of-a-century-on-Earth" celebration. Although I haven't been much lucky in crossing off as many tasks among the fairly long list, I have created my first Telegram channel to re-share episodes from the BBC Radio 4's In Our Time: Philosophy podcast (https://t.me/+A8WiS4-yLJs0ZDlk) back in September, and posted my first blog last week, which are a huge successes considered how long I have been waiting to do both. And this past Thursday, I got the chance to accomplish another crucial activity that was never on the list.

As a moderate fan of classical music, it has taken me too long to attend my first live performance. Sadly, my closest experience to a live concert has been a recorded version of a YouTube live stream. Though it’s not solely my fault. It’s rarer than a?blue moon to find a classical music concert to attend in Addis Ababa— or so I thought. But this Thursday, I was lucky enough to witness a live performance at the Italian Cultural Institute by the Trio Chimeras ensemble and Simone Gramaglia (my excitement before the event was through the roof that I wasn't able to have a casual discussion with my colleagues without mentioning that I had an event to attend to that Evening). They played pieces by the giants Johann Sebastian Bach, Luigi Boccherini and Robert Schumann, which should have been a mini-heaven for a music lover as I. But my expectation of experiences I would feel and the reality were afar.

Don't get me wrong; the musicians were marvelous and the music played beautiful— or so they said— but the sense of being out of place and fatigue dared to conquer me because I haven't heard the pieces played before, and I am not that musically inclined to be able to relate to a live performance of this genre of music without any guidance.

Nonetheless, the couple of hours I spent at the institute were not of waste. Seeing the musicians play their instruments with deep passion and focus made my brain rekindle a thought hidden away from the spotlight for so long.

What am I passionate about? What would I enjoy doing so much that I would want to do it everyday? What can I do with so much love and focus that I would stop worrying about what other people will say about me? Is there even such a thing considering the human behavior to look for new things do every turn of their way? Do people who claim to have found their "passion" have moments of doubts?

The event ended before I could re-examine my stand-in answers given for these questions raised long ago forcing me to bookmark the thought for another time— a time when I have enough experience and insight on the subject matter, or a time when I attend my next classical music concert.

Thank you @Italian Cultural Institute Addis Ababa for organizing the concert. Looking forward to the next one.

#classicalmusic #passion #philosophy #culture