Fw: Fw: Appreciate Beauty and Art and Junk Please

A few days ago, my aunt forwarded me the greatest email in the world. She prefaced the forwarded email with the following:

PLEASE READ. I ALMOST NEVER FORWARD STUPID THINGS TO YOU. LOVE, tia B.

I'm pretty sure what she meant to write was "I ALMOST ALWAYS FORWARD STUPID THINGS TO YOU." And I don't meant that negatively. I love stupid things always.

Here is the abridged version of the forwarded email:

Fw: Fw: The Violinist Playing in the Subway

A man sat at a metro station... and started to play the violin... He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes... it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station...

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man... slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule...

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time...

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped... He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it...

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell... He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.00 each...

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

For a second, I assumed this was just an urban legend, until I did a little journalism (i.e. googling) and discovered this was all true according to the Washington Post.

As the forwarded email stated, there are many possible conclusions from this email, but there's one important statement that still has gone unsaid.

His words are more beautiful than his music and his face put together.