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Sep 20, 2011
"The integrity of beauty is that inner straining towards goodness and completion." --John O'Donohue
Why Does Beauty Exist?
"Why does beauty exist? What's the point of marveling at a Rembrandt self portrait or a Bach fugue? To paraphrase Auden, beauty makes nothing happen. Unlike our more primal indulgences, the pleasure of perceiving beauty doesn't ensure that we consume calories or procreate. Rather, the only thing beauty guarantees is that we'll stare for too long at some lovely looking thing. Museums are not exactly adaptive. Here's my (extremely speculative) theory: Beauty is a particularly potent and intense form of curiosity. [...] Put another way, beauty is a motivational force that helps modulate conscious awareness. The problem beauty solves is the problem of trying to figure out which sensations are worth making sense of and which ones can be easily ignored." This Wired Magazine article offers an insightful look into the neuroscience of beauty.
BE THE CHANGE
"There is a wonderful urgency within things to realize the dream of their individual fulfillment. Nothing is neutral, everything is on its way." John O'Donohue shares beautifully in this short passage. More ...
