Amadeus

Envy can help, but also kills;

Innocence is good, but also lethal.

            Let’s see, you have been spending almost all your life trying to be an expert of music composer, but someone can do it with minimum effort in one shot, and craft a masterpiece. And, you got responses like “You are doing good,” “she is just being talented,” and “You are good at your own.” How do you feel? Sad? Envy? Disappointed?

Without a doubt, most people can relate to sentences like these, but why? Are most of the people doing not good enough, or they are just being normal. Are certain people just born to be talented, or to be the love of God — uncompetable?

In this movie, Amadeus, Mozart and Salieri would certainly fit into this situation. Mozart was so young and innocent, yet a talented person in music; Salieri on the other hand, seemed to be on the opposite end. To be fair, Salieri was not totally bad or not talented in music, but he was just not as good as Mozart. Compared to Mozart, he perceived himself as a mediocre one, or the saint of mediocrities which he called himself as. Undeniably, Salieri did pay a lot of effort in his work, and kept on improving himself, but he just cannot be as good as Mozart. It was extremely ironic when Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was easily identifiable by a young priest who was not well trained in music in the movie compared to his own music.

Salieri was so angry and being so envious of Mozart’s talent, yet at the same time, he just cannot help himself because he truly appreciated and enjoyed every piece of Mozart’s music; he never missed Mozart’s performance. Salieri always compared himself to Mozart, questioning why Mozart was so good, to the extent that he had finally decided to identify Mozart as a love of God who was uncompetable. However, Salieri did not want to show his envy and hatred to Mozart, but choosing to help Mozart by time to time. It was cognitive dissonance, where Salieri’s attitudes and behaviors were contradicting to each other (Ciccarelli & White, 2015). Sadly, Salieri’s intense envy slowly engulfed his rationale, and eventually pushed Mozart to the boundary of death; whether had it come to his realization, his helps towards Mozart were more like stresses, severe stresses that killed Mozart.

Nevertheless, perhaps Salieri was not solely the one to blame. This was because Mozart himself on the other hand, was so playful, spending all his earnings on alcohols and leisure, and so innocent, believing Salieri was his genuine friend who was always being supportive and helpful to him all the times. Yes, if only if Mozart were to be more sensitive and cautious, realizing all the bad intentions from the others, and being more well-behaved, he could have saved himself from death. Pitiful, he did not. Well, at the very least, Mozart’s innocence had indeed granted him the sincerest happiness and gratification. His behaviors and attitudes maybe were less pleasing to the others, but his passion and confidence in this music was affirmatively something to learn. Despite of having doubts from the Majesty and the royal musicians towards his music, he was certain, certainly enough to tell that he was a vulgar man, but assuring that his music was not; it was his attitude towards music.

At the end of the day, perhaps it was all about perceptions. Rather than putting too much of emphasis on the wrong or true side, people might want to learn from the history, and reflect upon themselves. Everyone has indeed born to be different, different on the external side and internal side, or physical and mental. Just like Mozart, and many other people are born to be gifted or talented, but such giftedness and talents have caused some of them to be overwhelmed in their own worlds, disregarding themselves from the others and missing out the other essences of life and threats. On the other end, some might be born to be normal, but they are being appreciative and grateful of the life they have, treating everyone as equally well and putting the least defense on the others.

Civilization has surely provided human beings a better, modern and advanced life compared to the past, but sarcastically, people are still being hurt and harmed by each other due to their own mentalities. Taking envy and innocence as example; they are not absolutely a good or bad thing, but a subjective matter depends on how one would perceive and take it. Personally, to me, it is all about having to achieve the balance of everything, having an absolute and extreme idea on either endpoint does not guarantee how a thing would work. And, most importantly, live a life that you would find yourself to be at the utmost joy prior of not hurting the well-being of the others, period.

Reference

Ciccarelli, S. K., & White, J. N. (2015). Psychology (4th ed.). England: Pearson Education Limited.