I have been learning Giant Steps on the piano. Penned by the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane in 1959, it was a revolutionary piece of music that upended the traditional harmony of be-bop jazz. It became a litmus test among players, distinguishing the neophytes from those capable of fusing virtuosic chops and emotional magnificence. But it wasn’t Coltrane’s technical prowess that bent the arc of music.
Coltrane challenged the status quo with a deep expression of the heart; profound wailings from the spiritual well, built atop the technical well. We heard him not with our ears, we heard him with our soul.
Yet here I am, plodding through it as if I am taking a multiple-choice driver’s test, just praying I can get to the end with enough right answers, and my mind wanders to this:
What are the components of great art? And, perhaps, by extension, a great society?
Certainly, it’s not just technical ability. Great music is not a stream of perfectly executed scales. Portraiture is not meant to mirror photography. Soaring oratory is not a recitation of facts (though I’ll take some facts right now 😉).
In art, we thirst to unshackle ourselves from the ordered ordinary, to wander into the limbic. No matter how well-sanded any prose might be, if it doesn’t give me a splinter, if I don’t cry or laugh when writing it, if my heart does not leap in some fashion, then it is bound for the dustbin.
Epiphanous art alloys technique and expression, empiricism and revelation, head and heart. And when transcendent creation springs forth, there is a remarkable effect: We all feel the same.
This is how the club, theatre, or gallery becomes a church. We walk in atomized, individuals among separate individuals, until we are enveloped by the voluptuous heart; a musical crescendo, or a piercingly authentic monologue, and suddenly everyone is wearing the same rapt expression.
In a way, we become the music, as notions of time, space, location and form – the elements that so often define our individual human experience – dissolve. The curtain pulls back on the illusory nature of self.
This synchronicity of humanity cannot be simply explained through neuroscience. Why have we evolved to both create and experience transcendence through art, so that viewing a beautiful piece of art gives us the same feeling as being in love. We may all be simultaneously emitting dopamine. But the real question is why? What is this mystical force that animates the collective unconscious?
And as the reflection of our collective art, is culture any different? If our human experience walks the tightrope of the material and immaterial, then so must culture.
Increasingly, though, we dwell solely in the material world; one that defines us by our possessions and job titles, one in which we interact as transactional units, one that feels like my elementary school music teacher’s metronomic rendition of Giant Steps, always regurgitated at 3 minutes, 40 seconds long.
The Enlightenment ushered in reason, rationality and the scientific method. And we built the systems and structures of modernity around these principles, often for damn good reason.
Liberal democracy, in theory, tabulates the will of the people, a marked improvement from the divine right of kings. Capitalism maintains social stability through a (supposed) mutually beneficial economic relationship between people and it has lifted throngs out of serfdom.
Science and reason have built the piping of society, the road and bridges, the factories and skyscrapers, the infrastructure that girds our busy lives. Technology has provided us with medical advancements that save lives and alleviate pain, agricultural technology that could feed all the citizens of the world, an Internet that democratizes access to education and information.
However, inherent to science and its method is value neutrality. We increasingly live in structures and systems that have become inhumane, devoid of the ethics of the heart. The result is too often medical innovation gets channeled towards the pharmaceutical industry, agricultural advancement is sponsored by Monsanto, and the Internet is leveraged to spread misinformation and commodify our habits.
For America, or anywhere, to be great again, we must once again find our hearts.
We are collectively craving epiphany, often historically manifested by the uniting of inspiration and action: Moses parting the sea to lead the Israelites out of slavery; Martin Luther King marching across the bridge in Selma (an act often called praying with his feet); Julia Butterfly Hill living in a 180-foot-tall tree for 738 days to protest old-growth clear-cutting.
If great art merges the mechanical and mystical, then should not our society also value them in equal measure?
Are we not aching for brave leadership centered in the heart?
Are we not thirsting to once again all feel the same?
This is the moment to discard our petty political labels and let the heart usher us into the church of our common humanity.
Now is the time to set down the armaments of our reasoned positions, remove our armor, and speak and listen to each other from the heart.
The spiritual heart holds the sacred truths echoed by every prophet – love, compassion and empathy – and thus the heart should set the coordinates of our systems and structures.
This is the Giant Step the world now beckons us to take: Like John Coltrane, we must challenge the status quo with a Revolution of the Heart.