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"The Ninth Symphony, a symbol of freedom and joy, was Beethoven’s mightiest attempt to help humanity find its way from darkness to light, from chaos to peace. Yet the work was born in a repressive era." This promo copy really says it best.

I hadn't thought that much about the Romantic Period (early 1800s) in art/poetry/music even though that's where I seem to hail from. This book brought it into clearer focus. Rooted in the personal freedoms won in the French Revolution but then squelched by the return to dominance of the aristocracy, the Romantic Period celebrated the individual. Also the movement represents a recoiling from the dehumanizing Industrial Revolution, and serves as a push-back to the scientific community desirous of explaining everything rationally, Beethoven and others ignited a rallying cry for the human spirit, human emotion.

As the author writes, "...spiritual and intellectual liberation requires endless warfare against everything in ourselves that narrows us down instead of opening us up and that replaces questing with certitude."

Ergo: certitude bad, keeping an open mind good.

To that end, so many things bring me joy, "Ode to Joy," should be my mantra. Shackles should not exist, pushing your own boundaries, questing, should be everyone's driving force.

If your heart does not sing "Ode to Joy" every day, at least by the Fourth Movement, then maybe you are doing something wrong.

If the eagle soars, go with it.