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Aug. 21st, 2005 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meoraeDoes anyone own Color of Water? Cause all the copies at the library are checked out and I haven't read it yet. I finished Secret Life of Bees, so that just leaves Color of Water and whichever science book I choose to read.
So yesterday, my family and I drove up to Rhode Island to see Waterfire. We spent a few hours wandering around Brown. Then, we had dinner at a pizza place and ate ice cream at a Cold Stone Creamery that was a few stores down. Waterfire was amazing and after walking up the river for a little while, we just sat down and watched the fires.
And I got to thinking about beauty and awe and wonder. I was looking at the river and the repeating ripples and I realized that, at least in my opinion, things are more beautiful or wonderful when there isn't a creator. I've always found that I see the most beauty and awe and wonder in nature because it happened on its own. So there could be a god - I'm agnostic; I accept that. But before I even knew what religion really was, I was most affected by natural things, like Niagara Falls, or a mountain or forest. Yes human works of art can be beautiful, but they don't normally affect me as much as staring at the sky or whatever does. It's the fact that these things happened on their own that affects me. If there is a god, that takes away something from nature. It means someone created the earth and that makes nature more or less at the same level as a painting or sculpture. Yes the earth would then have been created by an all knowing being, but it would still have been created and not just have happened. I've heard people say that without God, they wouldn't see wonder and awe and beauty, but I see it in nature.
In Providence, there were tons of signs and things in spanish and it was amazing how much I understood. I was able to read a whole sign on a bus that was in spanish after I remembered that lo que meant what and not it that. I felt special.
I don't want to go back to school, but as I'm gonna have to, I would really like to get my schedule. We should be getting them this week, as they're mailed out before orientation and that's this thursday, but I don't like waiting for things in the mail. But whatever.
So yesterday, my family and I drove up to Rhode Island to see Waterfire. We spent a few hours wandering around Brown. Then, we had dinner at a pizza place and ate ice cream at a Cold Stone Creamery that was a few stores down. Waterfire was amazing and after walking up the river for a little while, we just sat down and watched the fires.
And I got to thinking about beauty and awe and wonder. I was looking at the river and the repeating ripples and I realized that, at least in my opinion, things are more beautiful or wonderful when there isn't a creator. I've always found that I see the most beauty and awe and wonder in nature because it happened on its own. So there could be a god - I'm agnostic; I accept that. But before I even knew what religion really was, I was most affected by natural things, like Niagara Falls, or a mountain or forest. Yes human works of art can be beautiful, but they don't normally affect me as much as staring at the sky or whatever does. It's the fact that these things happened on their own that affects me. If there is a god, that takes away something from nature. It means someone created the earth and that makes nature more or less at the same level as a painting or sculpture. Yes the earth would then have been created by an all knowing being, but it would still have been created and not just have happened. I've heard people say that without God, they wouldn't see wonder and awe and beauty, but I see it in nature.
In Providence, there were tons of signs and things in spanish and it was amazing how much I understood. I was able to read a whole sign on a bus that was in spanish after I remembered that lo que meant what and not it that. I felt special.
I don't want to go back to school, but as I'm gonna have to, I would really like to get my schedule. We should be getting them this week, as they're mailed out before orientation and that's this thursday, but I don't like waiting for things in the mail. But whatever.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 09:02 pm (UTC)You had some interesting comments about beauty (and did a lovely job articulating them ;D). You got me thinking about my concept of beauty, and I think mine is slightly different from yours. The most beautiful things for me often involve a balance between natural and artificial things. Nature on its own is often absolutely beautiful, I can't deny that. But something man made that goes along with the 'natural' things around it, or where plantlife and such have been allowed to develope around it is at least as beautiful.
Beauty, to me, is a balance of 'chaos' and 'order'. Things that 'just happened' mingling with things that were created. The naturally occuring ripples around a deliberatly beautiful, artificially created statue or fountian or whatever. The 'ordered', constant ripples being disturbed by a random 'chaotic' stick or fish or plant in the river.
For me, beauty lies not so much in the awe of 'wow, this just *happened*' but in the balance and contrast between things. If that makes sense.
"Awe" and "wonder" for me happens when I'm amazed that whatever I'm viewing, artificial or natural, is even *possible*. Usually it's natural, though, and I think that's because of the same thing that you were saying. Amazement that something this beautiful and complex and perfect could just happen, without being created.
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Date: 2005-08-22 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 10:54 am (UTC)