I found this little tool in a Walter Murch book (“In the blink of an eye”). Murch is a film editor, a kind of genius – he’s the guy who edited Apocalypse Now. He quotes an Ingmar Bergman paragraph, who explained something about… Igor Stravinsky.
Stravinsky wrote a lot about interpretation, performance.
As he had a volcano inside, he was preaching moderation. And then he couldn’t tame his volcano, and some concerts were… fiery – which was very surprising for his readers!
Murch tells that we seek balance in our lives.
- Therefore when we realize we have a volcano somewhere inside us, we try to temper the eruptions!
- And the one who has a glacier inside will advise passions unbridling.
The danger, tells Bergman, is to read Stravinsky the wrong way : to moderate the glacier, or to wind up the volcano.
I think of this Polish idiom : “One shouldn’t butter the butter”.
I knowww it’s not a tool, it’s a seed for overthinkers…
When do we have to think this way? What are our volcanoes? What are our glaciers? Do we handle balance? Do we do it the correct way?
Thanks for reading!
a french toolbox 