FRED JÜSSI THE BEAUTY OF BEING
A FILM BY JAAN TOOTSEN
I'm no researcher or a scientist. Rather, I'm an observer.
And I've focused on relationships, as constituents of a whole.
This beauty has captivated me.
And sharing this beauty, or experiences of it, with others
suits me best.
I sought a more intimate contact with this world through education,
so I studied biology.
Recording the sounds of nature as well as nature photography
have been a means of perception. And they've been very enriching.
It broadens your world. I discovered a whole new world
once I started living via my ears. It's surprising!
I can't tell how much photography has enriched my perception of
colour and form. And light! My comprehension of light.
What is this light we live in? Such a mundane thing.
But as you delve into it and as it gains importance in your work,
new layers begin to reveal themselves.
Awareness is important.
All we need is all around us. And some things are just given.
For example, we're all given a course to follow.
This course is yours alone.
The course is important.
As for the destination... It might sound odd,
but I'm one of those people who doesn't have goals in life.
Nor principles.
Not that I'm depraved or wholly unambitious,
but I trust my course.
And if you trust it, if you hold true to your course
and follow the chime of this inner sound that you're compelled to hear,
you'll surely reach your destination.
And I've experienced that as that unseen or unknown destination nears,
the clearer it shows itself.
And when you're finally there, you'll exclaim with surprise,
'Ah, so that's where I was headed! I've reached my goal.'
When I speak of silence as the shaper of a person,
I'm thinking of the profound effect silence has had on my relations with
nature,
people,
music,
visual arts,
poetry...
Because silence is inherent in all these realms, and many others.
Either directly or indirectly.
Thus, I think of silence as a natural resource.
Being your own companion, accepting yourself,
learning to live with yourself is no easy feat.
That's why, I've noticed, people are afraid of silence.
Silence has its own measure.
Make no mistake, I'm not saying silence is some ultimate bliss.
That all is fine so long as it's silent.
No, silence has its measure. And it's different for all people.
One has to bear it, while another needs it...
It depends on one's nature, I guess.
You might see a glade of cowslips.
Or marsh-marigolds growing on a riverbank, in springtime.
Or an underbrush covered with liverleafs
and later aglow with thimbleweeds.
But finding what's truly yours in all that glory takes time.
That's how a relationship grows.
These bonds are the main asset when you're your own company.
Some might say they're alone when they're out.
In a forest or at a seaside, in a meadow or a marsh...
But really, I'm not alone.
There's so much talk of hard work and success...
'Grow your business! Grow yourself!'
So that you end up with no time for yourself.
You have to have time for yourself.
You can't let others organise your weekends and evenings and mornings,
and whatever else...
You need time for idling!
We've been taught to work hard.
Now we ought to be taught to slack off.
That is, to rest.
Sometimes you have to be sinfully slothful and by yourself.
In April 1983 I recorded a nocturnal bird.
I recorded its songs and the silence dwelling in the pauses between them.
It sounds as if I did so in a church because it sang its nightly song
in a forest of tall pine trees. Like pillars supporting arches.
That is, treetops merging overhead.
I managed to send a copy of that recording from the USSR to England,
since I had some great contacts at the BBC Natural History Unit.
Surprisingly, I received a letter of gratitude urging me to send them
silence from a coniferous forest.
That was my first encounter with silence as a commodity.
I like listening to water.
It's a peculiar pleasure.
I even have my own spots for doing it.
You sit down by a river and start catching different tones in its flow.
It runs fast in some places, over rocks. Lazily in others.
Over a fallen tree, say. There are higher and lower sounds.
It's fascinating to listen to!
The cosmos that surrounds us,
that is so awe-inspiring and so admired by us,
so secret and mystical... It's actually a continuum!
It continues... All it has, I have – within myself.
Like a droplet of water from snowmelt or rain...
It's hanging on a branch and when you take a closer look,
you see the whole landscape in it: the upturned forest, flower fields...
Whatever it may show you, tiny though it is.
Everything's in it. And I, too, am such a droplet!
I'm no churchgoer. Though I like visiting them,
whether home or abroad,
to sit awhile and listen and look, and take it all in.
But my church is the forest.
And as for my religiosity, if I can even call it that,
it has everything to do with the forest, the trees...
I find it unfathomable that people don't appreciate
or love living trees...
I've never understood it.
Come summer, I like to go out and gaze at clouds passing by...
For us northerners, summer is a time to recharge, rest and settle.
Cicadas and grasshoppers chirping adds a lot to the experience.
A blowfly or a bumblebee might pass through.
And there you are, gazing at clouds.
Fully immersed in doing nothing!
Just idling, quite literally.
But it's like a purification.
Looking at the clouds, at the sky,
I enter a realm of no notions.
In it, there's no good or bad, no big or small.
No thoughts even...
I've noticed, on these occasions I'm not thinking at all.
It's a 'state of mind', yet it's also a realm without such concepts.
Gandhi has said that the world has enough for everyone's need,
but not enough for everyone's greed.
That, it cannot sustain.
My time here is almost up.
And I've often thought I'm glad, in a way,
that I don't have to witness how our GDP is further 'raised'.
Traversing boglands is not easy.
Viktor Masing has said that the fact one can't hurry in a bog
is reason enough to visit one.
This is something our oldest landscape can teach us.
It was a very quiet, moonlit night.
A lone dog was barking far off.
You can reach a very peculiar
state of mind in complete silence.
Away from the clamour of the world
and wandering around in a forest...
That moonlight contains all the moonlit nights of my conscious life.
Suddenly, they all spring to life.
And so you stand there, and look...
Not at the moon so much, but at what it does to the landscape.
How it changes a forest, or a river valley...
Or the grass, fence pickets, a chimney on a roof, its shingles.
I remember, in early childhood I was often terribly ill.
And a few times, I had a vision.
It was only many years later that I met a very wise old woman.
And we had many talks on different topics
I've not discussed with anyone else.
I described my vision to her. Though it's hard to convey visually.
She looked at me and I asked her if she knew what I had experienced.
'I do,' she said. 'That was death.'
'It neared. But didn't take you.'
Though I recall feeling dread before that vision, as a child,
I didn't know it had anything to do with the fear of death.
And I haven't given much heed to grand ideas about the afterlife
and all that.
I know nothing of my birth, or what this world was like
before I came about.
Similarly, I know nothing of leaving this world.
I've no point of reference even!
So I haven't bothered to think where I go and what comes next.
Juhan Liiv has said that poetry is like wind,
but without wind, the earth would stink.
At times I spend hours listening to the wind.
Especially in a pine forest. When the flaking bark
vibrates in the wind.
It makes this music. You can hear a whole symphony in it.
Wind makes no sound by itself. But you can hear it as it enters
an old windmill or a chimney flue and rattles the stove door
as you're making a fire.
And what the wind does to the sea is familiar to every Estonian.
Wind... can be a sign of danger but also a great companion.
A very calming companion. Like sounds of the sea,
wind sounds can be very calming.
There was a time when I went out to hear birdsong.
And finally I reached an age and a period in my life
where I go out to hear living silence.
It's a great pleasure.
A lot can be said about the level of culture of a land or a people
by how highly it regards and cares for its natural resources.
How well-studied and known they are, 'resources' in the broadest sense,
how well-preserved they are... It's purely a matter of culture.
I spent last Christmas in the forest.
I've been alone since my wife died.
And I had little desire to go visit someone as usual.
To be someone's guest, sit at a table and...
well...
play at celebrating Christmas, as insolent as it may sound.
But I felt things might turn out that way,
if I couldn't spend Christmas by myself – and by my campfire.
By the smell of its smoke. I need it!
Just as some need oxygen to live, I need my fire and its smell.
It's one of my favourite aromas.
It's some innate need that stems from one's nature.
And if you're at all able to follow your nature, then please do.
Though a person who does doesn't have it easy
once they've recognised their nature.
It means you have to remain true to yourself in all situations.
Which isn't always possible.
But whenever possible, try and follow your nature.