A Few Musings on Beauty

As if anyone needs a reminder how genius John Williams is. The Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack is one of the most beautiful I've ever heard in my entire life. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, arguably two of the greatest musicians alive, are playing the solo cello and solo violin parts. 

The whole concept of beauty is one that has fascinated me since I can remember. It's one of those things like justice we all agree exists, but we all have such different opinions about what actually constitutes it.  We say music is beautiful, we say people are beautiful, we say a view is beautiful. Why don't we have different words for objects and people and views? Socrates theorized about the Forms, the perfect embodiment of a virtue that exists in another place, of which everything that has that virtue here partakes. So the Japanese vase and the English countryside and the African woman all partake of the Form of Beauty - somehow. 

As with most things Socrates, I don't know if I buy that, but it's an interesting idea. 

I suppose the boring, "correct" answer is that we're conditioned to it based on our cultural norms and values and world views, etc, etc. But those don't spring from nowhere, so from where do they come? And is beauty truly a virtue to be sought after, or just something nice to look at and we're all wasting our time trying to pin it down? Why is one thing "beautiful" but another isn't? Why can ten people look at the exact same thing and come up with ten different answers to the questions, "Is it beautiful? Why?" Why does beauty even matter to us at all? Is beauty strictly a mortal matter, or does it exist (and matter) in the eternal scheme of things?

Good questions. Can't say I have the answers.

The Zombie Song

I feel like everyone needs to see this, because it's genius. 

Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry

On Living Alone in a Large House

Sometimes,
loneliness is a loud, silent ringing in your ears,
one you try to drown out with music
or the TV.

Sometimes loneliness is
a tingle along your skin,
as you feel someone's eyes on your back,
but turn to find no one there.

Sometimes,
loneliness is the solitary scent
of just yourself on the sheets
when you wake up, blinking and bleary-eyed, in the morning.

Sometimes loneliness is the sour taste
of nothing on your tongue,
as breakfast and lunch have come and gone
with no one to remind you to eat.

Sometimes loneliness
is a flash of movement
at the corner of your eye,
forever elusive, evading you.

Sometimes loneliness 

is a heavy feeling in your chest, 

an ache that sits on your heart 

and makes it hard to breathe.

[Source]: photo here

The Definition of Me

Why are we so quick to embrace the worst about ourselves? Where does it say that who we are at our worst is a more valid who I am than who we are at our best? Aren't we more often somewhere in between? Why is it that when I do something truly good or self-sacrificing, I brush it off as an anomaly, but when I lose my temper and yell at someone, I wallow in how horrible I am for days?

I've been rolling around this idea of identity for the last week or so. Is who I am defined by what I do? I balk at saying a child is "bad" simply because they misbehaved. But I think most would agree that Pol Pot or Stalin or Hitler were bad, if not downright evil. Obviously these are two sides of the extreme. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

I think the relationship is more complicated than a simple one-to-one correlation between being and doing. Intent has to weigh in there somewhere, too. Isn't intent the whole distinction between manslaughter and murder one? The outcome is the same no matter what you call it: someone is still dead. But in the eyes of the law, why you killed them is just as important as the fact that you did.

There's no denying that what you do impacts who you are, but I don't think it defines you. I'm not sure exactly what it is that does define you, but I'm sure it's not as simple as one aspect of life.