Beauty.
One of the world's most difficult concepts to define has been most popularly stated as being, "in the eye of the beholder."
I would like to submit that it is not as subjective as this cliche suggests.
What exactly it is I cannot tell you, but I will tell you that there must be some incredible, deep, and rich truth beneath it that every man, woman and child wants.
Every person has a deeply rooted desire - I would go so far as to call it a need - for it.
Why?
Freud suggests that, "civilization could not do without it" despite it's "uselessness."
Our society has very nearly convinced us that it is merely a superficial thing that can be obtained, controlled and dominated. G.K. Chesterton once cautioned not to, "free a camel of the burden of his hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel."
His point was that as soon as you take some thing away from the laws of its own nature, it is no longer that thing. If this is the case, then as soon as you contain, control or dominate beauty, it ceases to be what it is.
These are just the beginnings of my thoughts on the matter. They are not by any means complete, nor are they thorough at this point. However, during the next few months I'll be working hard to whittle away all the fluff that surounds beauty and explore, hopefully, its true meaning and significance.
Will you join me?
If you've had even one thought or question about beauty while reading the above or even before reading it, will you write it down in a comment to share it with me? Through the years I've found that thought projects work better when there's more than one brain and set of life experiences involved.
What is your understanding of beauty?
No comments:
Post a Comment