Beyond the Surface

This small article is from another blog of mine. I believe people love reading things about KICVOP, so I put here something most people have no interests to read in order to mix some exotic flavour into this blog.

Rather than saying 'below the surface', I would say 'beyond the surface' to make more music sense. The word 'beyond', in an abstract way, is something requires a gradual action to be achieved. And one can possibly feel the process of intellectual inquiry into what is beyond the reach of our everyday vision. I can barely find a word in Chinese which can substitute the word 'beyond'. 'Below the surface' in Chinese makes more sense if one wants to express the similar kind of meaning of going beyond. From a scientific conception,  'below the surface' is what actually happens physically in the reality. What cannot be seen from the surface is therefore hidden and has to be below the surface. From a more metaphysical way of thinking, however, what cannot be seen is usually more than what we can physically reach and intellectually think about and therefore should be beyond the surface.

I has always been in agreement with the superiority of Chinese words in expressing abstract feelings, but I defected to English this time. The word 'beyond' is in itself a music note which conveys a flowing and circular life. The visualisation of the abstract action of 'beyond the surface'  requires both a scientific attitude and a romantic vision. Perhaps this is why the survival of classical music as a whole was made possible.