Thank you for taking on this difficult topic. The popularity of anti-beauty makes no sense to me (I would like to see an essay that explains the attraction of anti-beauty or maybe Craig and Thomas could have a chat about that).
The purpose of my life is to create beauty. I have only met one person who openly acknowledged that his purpose in life was to create beauty (he is a jewelry maker). When I am in the presence of ugliness, I feel ill and turn away. So I do not equate Beauty with being real (beauty resides in reality, but not all of reality is beautiful). In other words, I agree with "Asserted: beauty is the deep longing of mankind." But I don't need to find a way back to beauty because I have chosen on a moment-to-moment basis to surround myself with beauty. Beauty is like a light that I recognize and follow.
Appreciate all your thoughts Lynn. I think the question of the correspondence between Reality and Beauty is at heart a metaphysical/theological one, and extends to the question of “is the world as we experience it now as it should be?” Probably a topic with enough room for several more essays but I might leave that to wiser minds.
I hope that you attempt to write the essays (we might have to wait a long time for the wiser minds to show up). The question "Is the world as we experience it now as it should be?" is a good place to start. Do we create the world by what we choose to pay attention to? Something like the equivalent of Twinkies disappearing because people stopped buying them. Does everyone have an obligation to face (rather than turn away from) the world as it is now and try to transform or redeem it, or is this something that we leave for a self-selected group of people? Personally, we can answer these questions, and our answers may well be different. It is good to test our answers against each other, not to persuade, but to find out who we are.
"Beauty in art is a finger pointing joyously towards the Real, no matter how subjectively ugly the specific object of interest may be, crying out " There, there it is! The creation of the Uncreated!""
It does feel like one revelation of remembering after another these days, cheers for this a lot of it resonated
Thank you for taking on this difficult topic. The popularity of anti-beauty makes no sense to me (I would like to see an essay that explains the attraction of anti-beauty or maybe Craig and Thomas could have a chat about that).
The purpose of my life is to create beauty. I have only met one person who openly acknowledged that his purpose in life was to create beauty (he is a jewelry maker). When I am in the presence of ugliness, I feel ill and turn away. So I do not equate Beauty with being real (beauty resides in reality, but not all of reality is beautiful). In other words, I agree with "Asserted: beauty is the deep longing of mankind." But I don't need to find a way back to beauty because I have chosen on a moment-to-moment basis to surround myself with beauty. Beauty is like a light that I recognize and follow.
Appreciate all your thoughts Lynn. I think the question of the correspondence between Reality and Beauty is at heart a metaphysical/theological one, and extends to the question of “is the world as we experience it now as it should be?” Probably a topic with enough room for several more essays but I might leave that to wiser minds.
I hope that you attempt to write the essays (we might have to wait a long time for the wiser minds to show up). The question "Is the world as we experience it now as it should be?" is a good place to start. Do we create the world by what we choose to pay attention to? Something like the equivalent of Twinkies disappearing because people stopped buying them. Does everyone have an obligation to face (rather than turn away from) the world as it is now and try to transform or redeem it, or is this something that we leave for a self-selected group of people? Personally, we can answer these questions, and our answers may well be different. It is good to test our answers against each other, not to persuade, but to find out who we are.
"Beauty in art is a finger pointing joyously towards the Real, no matter how subjectively ugly the specific object of interest may be, crying out " There, there it is! The creation of the Uncreated!""
It does feel like one revelation of remembering after another these days, cheers for this a lot of it resonated