As seen in the Feb. 20 issue (view online here)
Two concepts have been running separate but parallel in my considerations, yet their sound suggests some connection. Turns out this latches to previous work, so it’ll be
PART FOUR
Part 1 – Art by Everyone
Part 2 – No, I Insist
Part 3 – Volume Volume VOLUME
We’ve greater choice now to perceive objects or events for their aesthetic (ess-THET-ic) value, wringing that which is beautiful from the reality we create. We recognize also that we interpret this beauty individually, and must employ empathy’s veil to imagine it defined by another re: beauty, eye, beholder. We might revel in – possibly even expect – its broad application as we seek the comfort of beauty, and thus love, happiness, and peace.
I regard that greater choice because I believe a wider majority of (the ever-growing) us possess a more expansive knowledge of our universe; a perception of vast scales of space, time, and other dimensions (?) populated by enumerate flora, fauna and otherwise; the long-stretching continuity of particles combined and uncombined across the piling moments. The “ET freaking CETERA” of all and everything before – now – and to come – that welcomes our consideration and would witness our demise.
And it is here, now. And it is beautiful.
And we have the gifts of perception, awareness, and accumulated experience to interact with it.
I leave “Is it beautiful regardless of us?” for others – with awareness you get egg roll, so I‘m good.
Our grander sense of grander things delivers us from pigeonholing beauty; we can find the beauty in each from the premise that it exists; that it – the object or moment – is, indeed, amidst all of this all, and thus imparts some manner of beauty. There is beauty in each for each is part of the all. The all is beautiful, thus each is beautiful. re: Stevens.
The all, the singular totality of beauty, The Aesthetic, the overarching beauty of everything.
The Beauty. The Light. The Energy. The Good. God (even, maybe, why not?)…I digress.
It is but a choice of perception, a choice of the mind. Ah, but the body makes its demands and we must abide our duality. We must act on our thoughts and perceptions, and we wield our free will accordingly.
We always have the choice for a more ascetic (ess-SET-ic) lifestyle, eliminating hedonistic indulgences from our lives. Disciplined ascetic living typically associates with religious or spiritual followings and usually involves sexual abstinence and choices that devalue property, possessions, and pleasures of the flesh such as alcohol. More secular practices focus on disavowing one specific component or another, though this method can combine multiple facets during, for example, strict athletic training.
It is difficult for someone without a guided motivation to choose a more ascetic lifestyle, especially amidst all our 21st-century gluttony of personal freedoms. We choose more often to seek happiness through the acquisition of material wealth and “good times.” It could be argued, however, that some of the most exalted people in our history practiced ascetic living as their level of enlightenment encouraged – Diogenes, Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Mother Teresa. In fact, one might even argue that some of these could be included in the “50 Most Beautiful People of All Time” list, depending of course on your interpretation of beauty. But therein lies a possible connection – one might perceive ascetic living as pleasing to the aesthetic.
The words of Socrates (like Jesus) exist solely through the works of others, mostly in the dialogues of Plato. My favorite of these is The Symposium, where a dinner party’s entertainment consists of each man praising the God of Love. Plato keeps Socrates as his closer, naturally, and Socrates hits it out of the park; he nails the idea of beauty and love in a manner that far exceeds the other guests. (Interestingly, Socrates achieves this by repeating a conversation where a woman teaches him the nature of love and beauty…but again, I digress.)
The dialogue does not end there, though. When Socrates finishes, the drunken Alcibiades (ÄL-si-BIDE-ees) enters, and is thus commanded to speak his turn. “In vino veritas,” he eventually proclaims (“In wine there is truth”), and in doing he speaks not so much to Love as to Socrates’ wisdom and virtue. Alcibiades describes a series of events by which he attempts to seduce Socrates – the thinking being that the closer you can get to the man, the closer to his wisdom. Yes despite Alcibiades’ numerous efforts (which makes for some very sultry reading, at least for around 489 BC) Socrates remains chaste. Alcibiades moans about his eschewed advances, yet ultimately uses this as an example of Socrates’ virtue. Amidst all else that Alcibiades extols, he goes in glowing detail about Socrates’ temperance, and how he has overcome its personal impact. His drunkenness evens underscores his validity.
So here, in one of our greatest philosophers’ writings about the glory of Love, Plato chooses not to leave us with Socrates’ accounts of beauty, but instead with a deeply personal account of Socrates’ moderation and power of will to not give in to earthly pleasures. For a long time, I wondered about Plato’s choice – why would he tack on this tale of unrequited affection after Socrates waxed so eloquently? In further separate explorations, I found this question as a variation of the later general one – the possible connection between beauty and moderation, between aesthetic and ascetic.
We are all, after all, simply trying to be happy in this life. And as happiness, beauty, love and peace are inexorably coiled, it can be a difficult wire upon which to balance. Our vaunted individuality insists we not only define our own beauty, but we define our own happiness, and more often these days we reach that definition by getting more of what each of us want. A beautiful community, however, would consist of beautiful people, and perhaps a beautiful person in that community would seek more of what we would all want and concentrate less on the self.
Perhaps “The Aesthetic” is more ascetic than we might currently choose.
One Perspective 