His fingers couldn’t move – he was petrified. A lukewarm stream of blood trickled down his chin, pooling upon his tattered, creased trousers and staining the ivory keys of the piano. The tone of his notes gave away his fear, filled with hesitancy and restraint. She hit him again – this time, shattering his glasses into jagged remnants. The room seemed to shrink around him, only making her seem larger. The tears he wept, a futile deluge, only blurred his vision and bred further discord amid the cacophony of degrading insults and violent strikes.
Kousei’s mother Saki, whose aspirations of fame and musical success are overshadowed by her terminal illness, attempts to live on through her child – in a sense, she’s chasing her own immortality.
She seeks to forcefully mold Kousei into a human metronome, a slave to the score. From a technical standpoint, he would be perfect, guaranteed to win every competition, be signed to a prestigious label, and surely build up his career as a musician.
But it would also break him down.
Most people fade into insignificance – their lives a journey to oblivion. So how do we become memorable? How do we truly acquire immortality? Must we be subjected to frequent beatings by an angry, sick, desperate mother? Must we win dozens of piano competitions while harboring a silent disdain for the tools of our very triumph? How many gallons of blood must we bleed? How many pairs of glasses must we fracture? Must greatness always demand such sacrifice?
How do we become immortal without killing ourselves?
***
Over a decade shackled to the Scarsdale education system has etched a grim revelation into my psyche: passion is a sacrificial lamb, slaughtered upon the altar of college applications.
“I love history so much!” said a certain someone – to their history teacher. Do you like science research that much, or is it rather a calculated addition to the mosaic of other “authentic” activities embellishing your resume? Will your work resonate with true scientists seeking to legitimately advance their fields, or will it simply fade into the background noise of other high-school “researchers” exaggerating their findings? Oh, you love the environment? Is that why you started a non-profit where you do occasional bake sales for obscure causes, host monthly meetings where recycled information on climate change is regurgitated, and then proceed to never think about any of what you started ever again after March of senior year?
At this institution, dozens of new club applications are denied every cycle. Why? Lack of originality. What breeds originality? Passion – because no impassionate person seeks to leech off the work of others, what’s the fun in that?
To be more blunt, we are conformists – myself included (I can't deny it. Nobody can). I can’t help but feel the pressure of being left behind. I’ve started a club; I’ve done my volunteer work; I’ve won competitions; no non-profit, but even if I had one, is it ever really enough? And when the minimal amount of energy spent on this non-profit is all said and done, just like your “research”, who will remember it? Will you even remember?
***
The preliminary round of the Towa Music Competition in episode two of Your Lie in April is the first time the viewers are exposed to the musicality of violinist Kaori Miyazono. The set piece was Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata No. 9. The first five performances were forgettable.
Yes, they were technically on point. Yes, they were emotional – but in all the same way: they, too, were conformists.
Recurrences of those same feelings, of those same colors, will inevitably taint their performances a bleak gray. Audience members even whispered about how only the occurrence of an audible mistake made the music worth listening to.
Then comes Kaori, the sounds of her dress shoes reverberating throughout the amphitheater. Her relaxed shoulders, yet stern face, demanded respect and seemed to revive the pulse that had died out in the audience. The floodlights overhead buried her figure with an intense radiance, illuminating the jewels around the neckline of her dress and accentuating the dewy beads trickling down her cheeks.
As she played, Beethoven very quickly lost control over what was once his. Her unorthodox style was beyond interpretation because she undoubtedly “owned” it. Her playing exuded unreplicable passion – emotions that could’ve never been found in the original score were discovered through her. At the end of the performance, two strangers gifted her flowers
– nobody gets flowers after the prelims.
Yet, she lost. Miserably – almost violently as the judges verbally bashed her for seemingly undermining such a serious event.
Another thing I’ve learned from Scarsdale: conformity is often rewarded over authenticity. Although you got it right, you have to follow this formula. That’s -10 for you. Your thesis combats my preexisting view of the novel – it’s wrong: C+.
Orders are given without purpose. Directions are commanded without reasoning. Maybe that’s not just at Scarsdale, but doesn’t that simply make it an even larger issue?
And what is it exactly that we get out of conforming? Security. Conform equals comfort.
We all have this “perfect” version of ourselves, the self-actualized one, the one with a 4.0, the one with a 1500. We all have these “Kousei’s” that we idolize. If we do manage to take its form, we feel at ease – we are at last satisfied.
Yet, how many people have good grades? How many people have high test scores? If your personality boils down to as black-and-white factors as grades and SATs, then – and let me be straightforward – who the fuck cares?
I’d like to think that my perfect person and yours are identical. You want those A’s, and I do too. If we both become that person, and nothing else, what is there left to distinguish us two?
Kaori didn’t get those A’s – she didn’t become the ideal, robotic musician that wins competitions like it's routine, she didn’t conform, she didn’t even pass the prelims – but is that what she really wanted to do? She’s anemic. She’ll bleed out dead in less than a year.
Instead of being perfect, she was simply her. Perhaps that's what reaches people – that's what remains immortal when mortality rips your soul from its earthly vessel, as the blood in your organs depletes again for the final time.
Kaori didn’t fight for first, she fought for the flowers.
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