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528 Chama, N.E., Albuquerque, NM 87108 http://www.cbass.com |
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“The man who works and is never bored is never old. Work and interest in worthwhile things are the best remedy for age.” Pablo Casals Purposeful Work Prolongs Life Carol brought home a book titled JOYS AND SORROWS: Reflections by Pablo Casals, a legendary cellist, who passed away in 1973, just short of his 97th birthday. She observed that Casals’ lifestyle was similar to mine. The book began as a collaboration with journalist and author Albert E. Kahn and blossomed into a portrait and perspective on the creative life. More than an extraordinary artist, Casals was a highly regarded human being. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, although the ceremony was presided over by Lyndon B. Johnson. A quick scan of Joys and Sorrows convinced me that she’s onto something. While the story of Casals' life and musical career doesn't mirror mine, his thoughts on work and aging (capsulized above) are enlightening. They hit home. As I wrote on his passing, Bill Pearl needed a “project” to keep him going. Similarly, I dread days when I wake up with nothing meaningful to do. Casals’ reflections are indeed uplifting and warrant examination. * * * She directed me to The Marginalian website, where Maria Popova spends hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars capsulizing the core ideas of books like this. For fifteen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. She has no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also her life and livelihood. I couldn’t begin to match her synopsis of JOYS AND SORROWS, so we are presenting a good part of it here. If you find it as worthwhile as we did, visit and support Maria Popova’s labor of love. You’ll also find superb photos of Casals at various stages of his life: https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/12/03/pablo-casals-work-age/ Legendary Cellist Pablo Casals, at Age 93, on Creative Vitality and How Working with Love Prolongs Your Life Straight from the opening, Casals cracks open the essence of his extraordinary character and the source of his exuberant life-energy with a beautiful case for how purposeful work is the true fountain of youth: On my last birthday I was ninety-three years old. That is not young, of course. In fact, it is older than ninety. But age is a relative matter. If you continue to work and to absorb the beauty in the world about you, you find that age does not necessarily mean getting old. At least, not in the ordinary sense. I feel many things more intensely than ever before, and for me life grows more fascinating. Recounting being at once delighted and unsurprised by an article in the London Sunday Times about an orchestra in the Caucasus composed of musicians older than a hundred, he considers the spring of their vitality: In spite of their age, those musicians have not lost their zest for life. How does one explain this? I do not think the answer lies simply in their physical constitutions or in something unique about the climate in which they live. It has to do with their attitude toward life; and I believe that their ability to work is due in no small measure to the fact that they do work. Work helps prevent one from getting old. I, for one, cannot dream of retiring. Not now or ever. Retire? The word is alien and the idea inconceivable to me. I don’t believe in retirement for anyone in my type of work, not while the spirit remains. My work is my life. I cannot think of one without the other. To “retire” means to me to begin to die. The man who works and is never bored is never old. Work and interest in worthwhile things are the best remedy for age. Each day I am reborn. Each day I must begin again. For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. With great elegance, he contrasts the dullness of mindless routine with the exhilaration of mindful ritual — something many great artists engineer into their days. In a sentiment Henry Miller would come to echo only two years later in his own memorable meditation on the secret of remaining forever young, Casals writes of his daily practice: It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being. The music is never the same for me, never. Each day is something new, fantastic, unbelievable. That is Bach, like nature, a miracle! Casals, indeed, finds great vitalization in bearing witness to nature’s mastery of the self-renewal so essential for the human spirit over the long run: I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature. It is there on every side. It can be simply a shadow on a mountainside, or a spider’s web gleaming with dew, or sunlight on the leaves of a tree. I have always especially loved the sea. Whenever possible, I have lived by the sea… It has long been a custom of mine to walk along the beach each morning before I start to work. True, my walks are shorter than they used to be, but that does not lessen the wonder of the sea. How mysterious and beautiful is the sea! How infinitely variable! It is never the same, never, not from one moment to the next, always in the process of change, always becoming something different and new. In the same way, Casals argues, we renew ourselves through purposeful work. But he adds an admonition about the complacency of talent, echoing Jack Kerouac’s fantastic distinction between talent and genius. Casals offers aspiring artists of all stripes a word of advice on humility and hard work as the surest path to self-actualization: I see no particular merit in the fact that I was an artist at the age of eleven. I was born with an ability, with music in me, that is all. No special credit was due me. The only credit we can claim is for the use we make of the talent we are given. That is why I urge young musicians: “Don’t be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters. You must cherish this gift. Do not demean or waste what you have been given. Work — work constantly and nourish it. Of course the gift to be cherished most of all is that of life itself. One’s work should be a salute to life. Hence Ray Bradbury’s famous proclamation that he never worked a day in his life — further testament to the magic made possible by discerning your vocation. Casals lived and worked for another four years, dying eight weeks before his ninety-seventh birthday. Joys and Sorrows remains an invigorating read — a rare glimpse into the source of this creative and spiritual vitality of unparalleled proportions. My Take Maria Popova does a marvelous job of condensing and commenting on Casals’ uplifting view of purposeful work as the key to a long and vital life. Casals’ reflections are an age-focused version of Flow, which I wrote about in Lean For Life.
This photo by Chris Lund appears on our cover and shows the result of lifting for a lifetime. It boils down to success breeds success. It has been known since Aristotle that “periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times of their lives. In other words, enjoyment comes from laboring, slowly but surely, to succeed at some challenging task. * * * My father was an example of what happens when this breaks down. I came on him crying near the end of his life. It was shocking to see this strong man, who had been successful at practically every stage of his life, in this emotional state. I always thought of him as invincible; someone who could cope with anything. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he didn’t know. Maybe not, but Casals has opened my eyes. * * * A world-class pole vaulter in high school and college, my father came down hard on his back and leg. There were no cushioned pits in those days. That landing came back to bite him years later, causing him to lose much of the function of one leg. I remember him telling me how humiliating it was to fall on his back while attempting to step up on a curb. That caused him to shut down his medical practice, no longer seeing patients who loved and depended on him. He told me he was afraid he was going to fall on a patient. Sounded like a joke, but it was a dead serious metaphor for his situation.
I didn’t fully appreciate the void this created in his life—that he was struggling to find purpose in his life. It pains me that I wasn’t more understanding—and responsive.
It also helps me understand the connection Carol sees between Casals' reflections and what we do at Ripped Enterprises. * * * Casals’ life--and my father's situation--reinforce our intention to continue exploring new concepts and sharing them with our visitors; getting up every morning striving for purpose in our lives. Making my barbell do for us what Casals' cello did for him. November 1, 2022 Ripped Enterprises, P.O. Box 51236, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87181-1236 Home | Products Index | Ripped Bks | Lean Adv. Bks | Lean For Life | Recommended Bks | |Consultations | Tapes | To Order | Feedback] Copyright © 2022 Clarence and Carol Bass. All rights reserved.
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