The Violin Strings

During these days of stress and strain, many succumb to high blood pressure, strokes, or heart attacks. Why is this so? The meeting of deadlines, job dissatisfaction, interpersonal conflicts, marital problems the breakup of the home, business failures, economic insolvency – all these, and more contribute to our stressful conditions. Add to these the corollary feelings of fear, jealousy, anger, frustration, disappointment, anxiety, worry, depressing− and you have all the necessary ingredients for perfectly stressful condition.

Stress, however, is not all that bad, for there is also a good side of it. Actually stress is a neutral word that simply means tension. Now, there are bad stresses and good stresses. If we are referring to the negative or debilitating type, “distress” is the more accurate word to use. If we mean the positive kind, “eustress,” meaning good stress, is the right way to use. Hans Selye, the Canadian physician and biologist, coined this word in his book Stress Without Distress.

A violin with completely loosened and relaxed string cannot produce any music. But when a violinist tightens the pegs so that the four strings are stretched with the right tension−sol, re, la and mi are templado−and the virtuoso sweeps these properly harmonized strings with a bow, notes almost divine float out the evening air. The plaintive sound of a violin serenades a kundiman in a moonlit night only when there is tension in the strings. Just so a little amount of stress is necessary to make out life interesting.

Life in most parts of the world is not easy for many. But there are still strong people. With a support system that a close- knit family provide, the inborn sense of humor , a strong religious faith, people are well able to take the little stress that come their way. So, a little creative tension is sometimes needed so that the symphony of life may sound sweeter like the violin strains which are wafted in the air during a moonlit night.