Supporting Your Piano Playing Journey
Written by ANDREW EALES
As the words boomed along the station platform, I realised straight away that they were directed at me. I turned, looked up the platform towards a burly man in an official-looking hi-vis jacket and sheepishly gave him the thumbs up.
I had been momentarily transfixed in a meditation on the nature of fear. Looking down at the rails I realised how easy it would be (having of course first checked there were no trains on the horizon) to step down from the platform, hop across the tracks and explore the beautiful verge that beckoned me from the other side. The grass is always greener…
And yet I would never, ever actually do so.
A self-preservatory terror of the rails had been instilled into me decades ago by my mother. My guess is that most of the passengers waiting on the platform would feel something of the same fear.
When movie heroes leap onto the tracks, we regard it as derring-do, suitably convinced of the huge risks involved. Meanwhile we ignore the thought that ordinary Network Rail employees routinely mosey around the rail infrastructure on a daily basis without being vaporised on the spot.
Most of us rarely question the fears or values that were instilled in us at a young age. But perhaps we should do.
Continue reading “Stand back from the edge please!”