“I shall seize Fate by the throat…”

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote the 9th Symphony while he was completely deaf. Read that sentence again. No, I know you already knew that. I don’t care. Read it again. Let it sink in. Now, go ahead and listen to it. Especially pay attention to 2:50 and beyond, because that’s where God personally comes down from heaven and sings through the choir.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2lVQlBlDtU&feature=related

Now, read that first sentence one last time. “Ludwig van Beethoven wrote the 9th Symphony while he was completely deaf.” When I hear the 9th Symphony, I think of the unquenchable passion that Beethoven had, and I let it inspire me.

When Beethoven discovered that his ever worsening deafness was incurable in 1802, he was heartbroken, nearly driven to suicide. In a letter to his brothers known as the Heiligenstadt Testament (which a wonderful theory teacher of mine described as “A suicide note turned ‘I Will Survive'”), Beethoven describes his feelings.

“But little more and I would have put an end to my life – only art it was that withheld me. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon me to produce.”

Twenty two years later, he composed the incredible colossus that is “The Ninth.”

I’m no Beethoven. I don’t deserve to bask in the same candle light, nor do I dare compare my loses in life to what he endured. However, I am no stranger to hopeless feelings, to despair, or even to thoughts of suicide. Like everyone else at the table we call Life, I’ve been dealt more than a few bad cards.

But I’m here for a reason.

There is a symbolic 9th Symphony in my future.

There have definitely been times when, like Beethoven, “art alone withheld me,” but I am here to accomplish something. I am here to do something that will last. I refuse to entertain anymore thoughts of giving up! I refuse to settle for anything less than a Beethovenesque passion for my art! One final quote from this musical powerhouse, and I will close.

‎”I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely.”