Beauty's Blur

Beauty’s Blur

            We are a people originally meant for ecstasy. Ecstasy is fruit of a pure union. A union is the product of beauty. Beauty is the gift of self. Apply this to everything, and hopefully I’ll see you in heaven! Kthanks.

Bad elevator music*….

            Ok, I’ll elaborate. Why is the 2^nd movement of Shostakovich’s second piano concerto considered so powerful and emotive? At the time Dmitri Shostakovich was finally able, after many years, to compose music free of censorship. His audience could finally realize the composer’s full countenance through his music. What you hear in this movement is, what I believe, the full gift of himself. It is tragic, romantic, and a little cynical simultaneously. That’s what makes it beautiful. When I hear it, I can relate to it. I make it my own, and am able to empathize with Dmitri. That is the union. The ecstasy is the great sentiment of consolation and gratification the piece leaves me with.

            Why is it so important to know what constitutes a beautiful thing? If there is one thing that will destroy the world, it will be the complete and total misunderstanding of what beauty is. The line that clearly defines what is and is not beautiful in this world is that which is the most skewed by evil. Now, for the sake of simplicity across different beliefs, lets just refer to this evil as dark forces, the Sith, Saron, the devil, and/ or Roger Goodell (I’m still bitter about bounty-gate). His method is to take something that is not, by my definition, beautiful and give it the illusion of beauty. Why is this his method? Well first, we are a people who were made to desire beauty. This method plays to our desires, and fools us into thinking that his cheap imitation of beauty is an authentic one. For example: the greatest and most beautiful thing ever created, in my opinion (and I’m not fishing for points here), is Woman. As a man, I have an imbedded desire for a woman because woman is beautiful, and I desire beauty. The fruition of a truly beautiful experience with a woman will be my complete gift of self to her. An alternately lesser experience would be for a man to give himself to an image or form of media that reduces the beauty of woman to her base parts. The line becomes blurry when the temporarily gratifying experience with the “reduced” woman is perceived as beautiful one and not a cheap and quick imitation.

            That’s just an example. My biggest issue on the matter deals primarily with when this process is applied to the arts. Music, visual art, dance, film, theater, poetry, and architecture can be the quickest paths to experiencing true beauty. Take the opportunity, and don’t settle!