over sherry and scotch what-seems-like a yom ago, i was given a request. and in my difficult effort to be a man of my word:
i do not know how i should define a concept, let alone a word, whose facets are many. at least, they have been made many -- making it difficult to assign one encompassing definition. furthermore, its importance, perceived or actual, puts a little extra pressure upon the shoulders of any human truly grappling with it.
can you know what something is before defining it? or is existence predicated only by -- or after -- definition? damn it. i don't know. it was not long before despair and melancholy came into my mind after pondering on such a traditionally joy-inspiring topic.
beauty.
what is beauty? what is it that is in an object... or person... or event... or whatever... (ad nauseum) that is capable of being beautiful? or does that question imply a disparity where there is none?
can it be as Tolstoy says: that beauty and goodness are not always in kissing distance?
or like what Confucius claims, 'Everything has beauty...'?
or can it be that, truly, beauty only exists in the subjective realm? [shudders at the thought]
at the risk of being a complete and utter dork, i feel like the council that was called to decide the fate of The One Ring in The Fellowship of the Ring when Lord Elrond says, "The ring cannot be destroyed, Gimli, son of Gloin, by any weapon we here possess."
"beau·ty, [byoo-tee], noun, the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest). "
'technical' has never really done it for me.
in spite of the quality, or position, that i lack as a Definer of Things, here's what i mean when i use beauty, or any of its forms:
"beau·ty, [byoo-tee], noun, a quality in a person, thing or event which inspires awe."
but, then again, the only reason i can even contemplate such things with any certainty is because i have met Beauty Itself.
5 comments:
I think you hit the nail on the head with one little word in the middle: subjective (shudder?). To me,this makes it very difficult to really pin down any one definition of the word. Awe-inspiring comes close, but if you accept that as a general definition, then you must also attribute beauty to those things whose strange, garrish, and often horrifying qualities have the ability to inspire awe in a person, as well as those things whose immensely pleasing qualities inspire awe in a person. Sorry for such a long sentence.
I'm surprised that Confucius would say such a thing; it would seem more like he would be the one prescribing what exactly has beauty. To say that everything has beauty is much more of a Taoist sort of philosophy.
At this moment, I say that everything has beauty. It might change, because as I have said, I'm intellectually flaky.... and apparently, I am also a misanthropoe.
misanthrope. typo.
i like Beauty to be ambiguous.
that way She can sneak up
when i'm not expecting.
beauty is beautiful, and though it sounds redundantly redundant, but it is one of those self-defined and self-definitive aspects of reality that can not or must not be interpreted or ascertained or judged from a linear perspective [what precedes which? {or, from which proceeds what}?].
like Caleb, i think i like that beauty is not only to be pursued, but that She is pursuer.
proofread that for me. i haven't the time.
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