There are moments when living seems to happen spontaneously.
Without calculation. Without overthinking. Without the need to understand everything before moving forward.
And perhaps that is precisely where we find one of the purest forms of joy.
“I Just Want to Live” is a new immersive experience from Dar Voz, a sound exploration of the passage from innocence to awareness, of what we lose when we start thinking too much, and of the urgency to live when we realise that time is limited.
When Overthinking Interrupts Life
The joy of living can disappear in an instant.
All it takes is for us to interrupt the impulse.
We start thinking things through. Questioning. Anticipating consequences. Imagining how others might see us.
And, little by little, spontaneity disappears.
Expression becomes suspended. The body stops moving forward. Desire loses its intensity.
This is the moment when the sound of stagnation emerges.
In I Just Want to Live, this state is created through the sound of dripping water and the artificial hum of fluorescent lights. Repetitive, almost ordinary sounds that create a feeling of waiting and stillness.
As if something had become stuck.
As if living had been replaced by observing our own lives.
The Innocence of Not Knowing Yet
Then, a new life appears.
Innocent. Curious. Restless.
A life that searches, smiles and experiments. A life that does not yet know what can go wrong.
And perhaps there is something precious about that ignorance.
Because discovering also means moving forward without guarantees.
The background music for this experience is a music box, associated with childhood and innocence. Its delicate sound creates a contrast with the moments of stagnation and prepares the space for what is still waiting to be discovered.
Before we know too much, there is a particular kind of freedom.
The freedom to act.
To try.
To sing.
Singing Loudly Without Fear of Being Judged
There is one central image in this experience:
singing opera in an empty courtyard, unaware that the nuns are listening.
Singing without thinking about judgement.
Singing simply because you want to.
Singing loudly to the deepest part of yourself.
It is an apparently simple gesture, yet it contains an essential idea: spontaneity disappears when we become too conscious of how others see us.
When nobody is watching, we are capable of doing things that we might abandon the moment we realise there are witnesses.
And it is in this confrontation between freedom and judgement that innocence begins to disappear.
Reality Changes Us Too
Reality eventually arrives.
And with it come loss, disappointment and the awareness that not everything corresponds to what we once imagined.
Innocence is gradually taken away.
Not necessarily because we stop wanting to live, but because we begin to understand the weight of consequences.
We already know that we can lose.
We already know that some choices leave marks.
We already know that certain people leave.
And that knowledge changes the way we look at time.
When We Realise That Time Is Limited
There comes a moment when awareness of our finitude stops being an abstract idea.
We realise that time is limited.
And then urgency emerges.
To feel everything.
To feel with intensity.
To experience.
To search.
To question.
To live before the possibility of living what we desire disappears.
This urgency does not come only from the fear of death. It also comes from the desire to understand what we are doing here.
What moves us?
What are we searching for?
What exists beyond what we already know?
A Search for Essence
I Just Want to Live ends with this movement of searching.
A relentless search for essence, purpose and whatever may exist beyond the surface.
There is no definitive answer.
And perhaps there shouldn’t be one.
Instead, the experience leaves us with a question:
If we know that time is limited, why do we wait so long to start living?
Perhaps living means accepting a certain degree of ignorance.
Accepting that we do not know.
Accepting that we may be judged.
Accepting that we may lose.
And, despite all of that, continuing to sing.
The Voice as a Space for Experience
In Dar Voz, the voice is not simply a vehicle for words.
It creates atmosphere, rhythm, tension and silence.
In I Just Want to Live, this dimension becomes particularly important. The experience brings together narration, music and soundscape to create different inner states: innocence, stagnation, spontaneity, confrontation and urgency.
The intervention of “O mio babbino caro”, by Puccini, introduces precisely this emotional and theatrical dimension. Opera emerges as an act of full expression, almost excessive, contrasting with the silence and restraint that appear at other moments.
A voice can be thought.
It can be memory.
It can be desire.
And it can simply be the will to live.
Listen to “I Just Want to Live”
This new immersive experience is part of Dar Voz, a sound creation project exploring the relationship between voice, text, music, silence and imagination.
Put on your headphones.
Close your eyes.
And let the sounds do the rest.
I just want to live.