Fly by Night: almost a metaphysical musical.

When I see a title which includes “metaphysical musical” I’m expecting souls connecting on the astral plane based on the residue of previous lives which then stains future iterations of the same souls.

You might be happy to know this isn’t the case in Fly by Night. The metaphysical aspects are restricted to a fortune telling clairvoyant and a ruminating narrator who speaks of the invisible interconnectedness of all things. If you’ve a hankering for Indian philosophy you might recognize The Jeweled Net of Indra in its vague Western disguise.

We in the West might say something such as, “I don’t know bro. It’s like everything is connected or something. Like it’s all the same thing just showing up in different ways.” Indian philosophy, on the other hand, worked out the theory of Indra’s Net over the course of about 500 years between the 3rd and 8th Centuries.

To be fair, “I don’t know bro” is more of a modern Western approach because the term “metaphysics” echoes down to us from Aristotle. Could there be a connection between The Net of Indra and Aristotle’s Metaphysics?

Aristotle lived in the 4th Century before Christ and famously tutored Alexander the Great who famously conquered all the way to India. “I don’t know bro. Seems like it’s all connected.”

What are Aristotle's Metaphysics? The word technically means beyond or after physics. Aristotle wrote his Physics and that was followed by the Metaphysics. The content of the Metaphysics approaches topics, such as proofs of the existence of god, which are outside the contents of his physics. The “I don’t know bro” topics.

Aristotle’s Metaphysics do not include clairvoyants, faith healing, crystal energy, palm reading, or any other aspects of modern Western Occultism. As an aside, they do contain something of modern corporate strategy.

Author Simon Sinek, has made quite a career out of differentiating between leaders who understand “the why” and those who only understand “the how and the what”. In the first book of the Metaphysics Aristotle claims the wise are those who know “the why” of things whereas the less wise only know “the that-ness” of things.

Steve Jobs knew and could communicate “the why” of Apple. Current Apple chief, Tim Cook, has been accused of only knowing the “that-ness” of Apple.

Fly by Night is a dark and moving romantic comedy which has some dramatic “I don’t know bro” moments. It runs at Coronado Playhouse through December 10.