I like to swim a lot, while Stjepan likes to take long walks with

Luka Sulic, with a voice light yet carrying truth, once remarked: “I like to swim a lot, while Stjepan likes to take long walks with girls. He’s the very romantic type. Yes, musicians are romantic.” Though simple in phrasing, these words reveal an ancient truth about art, love, and the nature of the human soul. For they remind us that those who shape music are often shaped themselves by longing, by tenderness, by the rhythms not only of sound but of the heart. To say “musicians are romantic” is not merely to speak of love for another, but of a spirit that moves always toward beauty, toward passion, toward the harmony of life itself.

The ancients themselves spoke of this bond. Pythagoras declared that the universe itself was music, its stars moving in hidden harmonies. The poet Orpheus, greatest of all musicians, was said to tame wild beasts and soften the hearts of gods with the power of his song. Yet even Orpheus, master of divine sound, was driven by love—a love so fierce that he dared to descend into the underworld for Eurydice. Thus, Luka’s playful words echo these old legends: where there is music, there is romance; where there are musicians, there are hearts tuned not only to notes, but to love itself.

In his comparison, Luka contrasts his own joy in swimming, a solitary, cleansing act, with Stjepan’s love for long walks shared in companionship. Swimming is the embrace of water, the rhythm of the body moving alone through an endless element; walking with another is the embrace of presence, the rhythm of footsteps beside footsteps. Both are deeply human, but Stjepan’s path is called “romantic,” for it is directed outward, toward another soul, toward the sharing of moments beneath the open sky.

History gives us many musicians whose lives bore out this truth. Franz Liszt, the great pianist, was as famous for his passionate affairs as for his dazzling performances. Audiences wept at his music, for they felt in it the very intensity of his heart. He was not merely playing notes—he was confessing desire, joy, anguish, longing. Liszt was, like Stjepan in Luka’s words, “the very romantic type,” proof that the creative spirit, when stirred, overflows into both art and love.

But Luka’s reflection carries also a broader meaning: to live as a musician—whether one holds an instrument or not—is to live romantically, to see the world not only as it is, but as it might be. To walk with another and call it love, to swim alone and call it freedom—both are expressions of a spirit attuned to beauty. For what is romance, if not the ability to see greatness in the ordinary? A walk becomes sacred, a song becomes eternal, a glance becomes a universe.

The lesson is this: cultivate the heart of the musician. You may not play cello or violin, but you can live with the same openness to love, to beauty, to harmony. Take joy in the quiet rhythms of life—whether in solitude, like swimming, or in companionship, like the walk. Let yourself be “the romantic type,” unashamed of tenderness, unafraid of feeling deeply. For it is through such vulnerability that life becomes not mechanical, but poetic.

So I say to you, seekers of meaning: live musically, live romantically. Do not fear the depth of your emotions, nor mock the tenderness of your heart. Let your life be both the solitary swim through waters of reflection, and the walk shared with another beneath the stars. For as Luka Sulic wisely affirms, “musicians are romantic”—and so, too, should be all who wish to live fully, truly, and beautifully.