Beauty is ... ? Beauty is ...
Beauty is.
According to David Mitchell, who wrote my favorite book, Cloud Atlas, beauty in the world cannot be defined. He should know because when I read his writing, I feel beauty. I can't describe it, the ways in which his words move me. I just know it, because I can feel it. Take this sentence for example, "The builder sort of vacuumed up his coffee so it didn't burn his lips." You feel that, right?
When you're in love, it's the same thing. You know it because you can feel it. But try telling someone what your love feels like.
Um, it feels good. A new, bare Christmas tree in your home for the first time. Sunset on a hill, looking down. A hummingbird hovering. Coasting on your bike after climbing a steep hill. Jumping into a lake all sweaty.
Right, those all are just other things that feel like love, like beauty. But they all flop miserably if trying to relay what it feels like to actually be in love.
That's because love can't be articulated, not truly. Yet when I turn on TV, open a book, listen to music, read a poem, or do another of a vast number of activities that involve humans trying to recreate and define our world, I see people trying to define love. It's silly, right? We can't do it. We can't define it.
The same goes with beauty, an extension of love, or perhaps its source. We can't put into words what it feels like to see or feel or smell or touch or be touched by something beautiful.
Mitchell wrote in this book called Black Swan Green, "Art ... fabricated of the inarticulate is beauty." Confusing, I know. Too confusing for me to butcher with an explanation, so I'll let Mitchell continue (through a character speaking imperfect English, but I'm not about to belittle the coming quote with that most deleterious of words, sic):
Beauty is.
According to David Mitchell, who wrote my favorite book, Cloud Atlas, beauty in the world cannot be defined. He should know because when I read his writing, I feel beauty. I can't describe it, the ways in which his words move me. I just know it, because I can feel it. Take this sentence for example, "The builder sort of vacuumed up his coffee so it didn't burn his lips." You feel that, right?
When you're in love, it's the same thing. You know it because you can feel it. But try telling someone what your love feels like.
Um, it feels good. A new, bare Christmas tree in your home for the first time. Sunset on a hill, looking down. A hummingbird hovering. Coasting on your bike after climbing a steep hill. Jumping into a lake all sweaty.
Right, those all are just other things that feel like love, like beauty. But they all flop miserably if trying to relay what it feels like to actually be in love.
That's because love can't be articulated, not truly. Yet when I turn on TV, open a book, listen to music, read a poem, or do another of a vast number of activities that involve humans trying to recreate and define our world, I see people trying to define love. It's silly, right? We can't do it. We can't define it.
The same goes with beauty, an extension of love, or perhaps its source. We can't put into words what it feels like to see or feel or smell or touch or be touched by something beautiful.
Mitchell wrote in this book called Black Swan Green, "Art ... fabricated of the inarticulate is beauty." Confusing, I know. Too confusing for me to butcher with an explanation, so I'll let Mitchell continue (through a character speaking imperfect English, but I'm not about to belittle the coming quote with that most deleterious of words, sic):
The amateur thinks his words, his paints, his notes makes the beauty. But the master knows his words is just the vehicle in who beauty sits ... Beauty is immune to definition. When beauty is present, you know. Beauty is here, that is all. Beauty is.
So why do we keep trying to define it? The beauty and the love?
Because it's worth trying. I think every time you try to explain to yourself why you love someone, you see them a little clearer, perhaps a little less subjectively. This can lead to two outcomes: you love them a little more or you love that you know them a little more.
I try to express the love I feel all the time, and I've never been wholly satisfied with my words. They always come up short. And though it might have something to do with, as Mitchell says, beauty being undefinable, I still do it. And even though my words are insufficient, the attempt is a beautiful thing in itself.
Because, really, that's what writing and talking and living is. It's attempting, every day, to put your finger on something that you'll never be able to put your finger on. What is it to be in love? I can't answer, but in no way does that mean I stop thinking about it altogether. I consider it over and over. I read books to hear other people's truths about love to better understand my own. I interact and connect with people because they are a mirror that I can hold up to see myself and the way I love more truly.
So, with that being said, next blog I'm going to write a letter to the person I love, and I'm going to do my best to articulate that love I have for her. Not because I can't define love, but because I can try and should never stop trying.
As Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes as he nears his death:
Because it's worth trying. I think every time you try to explain to yourself why you love someone, you see them a little clearer, perhaps a little less subjectively. This can lead to two outcomes: you love them a little more or you love that you know them a little more.
I try to express the love I feel all the time, and I've never been wholly satisfied with my words. They always come up short. And though it might have something to do with, as Mitchell says, beauty being undefinable, I still do it. And even though my words are insufficient, the attempt is a beautiful thing in itself.
Because, really, that's what writing and talking and living is. It's attempting, every day, to put your finger on something that you'll never be able to put your finger on. What is it to be in love? I can't answer, but in no way does that mean I stop thinking about it altogether. I consider it over and over. I read books to hear other people's truths about love to better understand my own. I interact and connect with people because they are a mirror that I can hold up to see myself and the way I love more truly.
So, with that being said, next blog I'm going to write a letter to the person I love, and I'm going to do my best to articulate that love I have for her. Not because I can't define love, but because I can try and should never stop trying.
As Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes as he nears his death:
My god, if I had a piece of life, I wouldn't let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them ... I would live in love with love.