I saw this on facebook. I don’t know if it is true, but I have no reason to believe it is not true. In fact this type of situation is fairly common in my experience. I’ll leave some comments below of how this relates to ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’.
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“A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace,
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”
In our busy money driven world I think that most of us are missing all sorts of things everyday. In fact I think many of us are completely missing ALL of the most important things in our lives. Our sense of value and in a related way our sense of self is so skewed by the realities of our current economic system – we often end up valuing what we are ‘told’ we should value rather than what is truly worthwhile.
‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ addresses this in two ways. For the person receiving a good or service, they are left to value what they are receiving for themself without being ‘told’ what it is worth. This means that they have to engage in thought about value and what is valuable to them. Encountering this in even a few interactions/transactions can lead to that person thinking about value at a deeper level in all of their interactions.
For the person giving the good or service, offering things in this way helps you to focus on the true value of what you offer rather than just a monetary value. This can help you to tap into deeper sense of inspiration and meaning in your work.
GFRF is not without its challenges as a way of exchange, but I think it has a lot to offer in the lives of both the giver and receiver.