Remember the London Olympics Closing Ceremony? Yes? No?

It was a light show, with costumes and loud music; an organized party for people of all ages. People smiling, laughing in the pit, wearing bright clothes and crazy funky hair, dancing like there totally wasn’t 7 million people watching.

There were half opaque octopi and shrunken, rotting boats… I’m pretty sure I noted a coffee patio painted entirely red, installed on a moving bus.

I sat on my battered couch as the colorful festivity of the 60’s slowly morphed into the incessant rhythm of today’s pop. The music filled my head with swelling melodies and trumpeting beats, the décor filled my mind with wonder and color; sometimes I even stood up and joined the dance, prancing around awkwardly on the faded blue carpet, waving my arms as I gave homage to the muse of music.

My favorite part?
Do you recall a lull in about the middle of the ceremony, when the dancing suddenly ceased?
A chorus of angelic voices rose up in the air, the notes high and uplifted, clear and pure.
The children’s choir, announcing the coming of yet another song: Imagine, by John Lennon.

I’m not a hardcore Beatles fan.
I don’t listen to their music often, and when I do listen, I don’t hear much.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the Beatles either. I even have a CD somewhere in the house, hidden in a rotting cabinet behind other dusty artifacts of the same genre.
It’s just that nothing ever prompted me to appreciate.

I have the same music likings as most other people my age: I’m swept along the path of popular music, passing from one artist to the next, following the trends like a distracted fly. I hear what other people say, and form opinions about the artist before I even listen to their music. Critics sway me easily.
Actually, now that I think about it, other people have decided the music I listen to, not myself.
I never thought to seek out the Beatles, because no one mentioned them.

When I tuned in to watch the Olympics though, I found, and listened to John Lennon.
Who was this singer? How come I haven’t found this earlier?
I had a sudden twitching suspicion that my musical education was very lacking indeed.
Then the television screen flickered and I recognized the face they were showing, the face of the author, the author of this song…
John Lennon.

That night I lay in bed, my laptop open on the floor below me. I played and replayed that song: Imagine, by John Lennon. I listened until my eyes could open no more and my head buzzed from the pleasure of music.

It was the unassuming, lilting accompaniment that caught my attention at first, but it was the lyrics that kept me there.

Go on. Go search the web for the lyrics if you don’t know them already.
Can’t you see have perfect they are?

Because, really, imagine a world where there are no categories to separate us, where there are no countries, no skin color, no good and no bad.
Imagine a world of peace.
Acceptance.

Just imagine.

A world where there’s no reason to kill or die.
Where there’s no heaven and no hell, where there’s only this earth.
Where there’s only today.
Where there’s nothing to separate us.

A world where it is not “everyone” but “us.”