Pearls Before Breakfast

My mother forwarded me an email yesterday that apparently has been circulating for nearly two years...I can't believe I hadn't read it before. It is a recap of an experiment conducted by The Washington Post at 7:51 AM on Friday, January 12....the middle of the morning rush hour...at a Metro station. For 43 minutes, a violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. As the article states:

"Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blendo f guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world (Joshua Bell), playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made ($3.5 million)."

So you'd think that a genius, as Joshua Bell is often referred as, and a very handsome one at that, would draw a crowd...that people would acknowledge him...or at the very least notice him. But no. He played for 45 minutes and only seven people stopped, for a minute, to take in his breathtaking talent...1,070 people hurried by, oblivious. He made $32 and change. Three days before this experiment, Joshua Bell sold out an entire concert hall where the price of a mediocre seat was $100!

But here's the part I find the most interesting:

"There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away."

Children notice beauty....they are never too busy to learn...they are always watching. I rush my children just like every other parent who has schedules, places to be, and to-do lists. But I'm going to make an effort to do it less...to notice beauty with my children. After all, if we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the most talented musicians in the world playing the most beautiful music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

The full article titled Pearls Before Breakfast can be read at washingtonpost.com.