the love of the aesthetic...
--------------------
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give:
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
- William Shakespeare, Sonnet LIV
--------------------
so the journal... *cough*... blog... has a new look...
eric said that the old site was dry and drab... i can't remember the exact term he used, but it was something about resembling a highschool kid's first foray in html coding... so i decided to give up a good night's sleep and transfer things over so it could look all pretty... it's funny what we do in the name of "making it look good"... of course, it's not like anyone really cares, i really don't know who reads this stuff besides the people i insist on forcing to do so... (i love you all, by the way)...
and speaking of doing ridiculous things to look good, i went to the gym today... i really like the YMCA, it's not as pretentious as the other gyms i've been to, where it's usually more than obvious that it's a meat market... at least i can concentrate on what i'm supposed to be doing -- working out... but today... good Lord! i almost dropped the weights a few times... i hadn't planned on doing shrugs, but my traps and neck still got a good workout, if you know what i mean...
so the topic for today's pontification: beauty and the love of the aesthetic...
of course, it's stating the obvious that we're obsessed with looks in this day and age... in fact... not even "in this day and age"... maybe it's wired into our brains... that's what some evolutionary psychologists and cognitive scientists would have us believe... and maybe there's a point to it... supposedly, beauty is a sign of health, and natural selection promotes the strongest and the fittest...
but that doesn't explain how we develop our sense of the aesthetically pleasing... are we conditioned to adopt certain notions of "beautiful", whether by culture, society, peer pressure, or family? or is there an underlying connection between different senses of beautiful? in the words of plato, is there a form of "beauty" that exists independently of its particulars?
yes, these are all rhetorical questions... i can't really explain to you why i find blonde hair and blue eyes attractive... or why we like shiny and sparkly things... why blue is my favourite colour... but of course, these preferences, if you want to call them that, are not rigid... i always joke with my friends that i eat from the international buffet... i look as good in red as i do in blue... and i appreciate impressionism for its subtlety as much as i enjoy surrealism for its imaginative fantasticality (yes, i made that word up)...
we'd all like to say that everyone's beautiful in every single way... but really... as jim carrey said in "liar, liar", that's just something ugly people say to make themselves feel better... LOL... ok, i'm kidding... no one's "ugly"... i think it's more the case that they just don't happen to be beautiful in the eyes of the particular beholder making that judgment at the time...
but, despite those egalitarian sentiments, we still have to discriminate in life... such a dirty word, it seems... but we do it all the time... we pick out clothes and homes and things and friends and partners and spouses based on a certain sense of attraction... "aesthetic" is not restricted to the physical, but encompasses the range of judgments we make about our particular "object"... i suppose, if we can't have perfection, we can at least try to find small doses of it in the world around us...
but i'd like more than a dose of what i saw at the gym...
come to think of it...
"dear santa..."
--------------------
Current mood: flushed
Current music: Alanis Morissette -- Ironic
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give:
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
- William Shakespeare, Sonnet LIV
--------------------
so the journal... *cough*... blog... has a new look...
eric said that the old site was dry and drab... i can't remember the exact term he used, but it was something about resembling a highschool kid's first foray in html coding... so i decided to give up a good night's sleep and transfer things over so it could look all pretty... it's funny what we do in the name of "making it look good"... of course, it's not like anyone really cares, i really don't know who reads this stuff besides the people i insist on forcing to do so... (i love you all, by the way)...
and speaking of doing ridiculous things to look good, i went to the gym today... i really like the YMCA, it's not as pretentious as the other gyms i've been to, where it's usually more than obvious that it's a meat market... at least i can concentrate on what i'm supposed to be doing -- working out... but today... good Lord! i almost dropped the weights a few times... i hadn't planned on doing shrugs, but my traps and neck still got a good workout, if you know what i mean...
so the topic for today's pontification: beauty and the love of the aesthetic...
of course, it's stating the obvious that we're obsessed with looks in this day and age... in fact... not even "in this day and age"... maybe it's wired into our brains... that's what some evolutionary psychologists and cognitive scientists would have us believe... and maybe there's a point to it... supposedly, beauty is a sign of health, and natural selection promotes the strongest and the fittest...
but that doesn't explain how we develop our sense of the aesthetically pleasing... are we conditioned to adopt certain notions of "beautiful", whether by culture, society, peer pressure, or family? or is there an underlying connection between different senses of beautiful? in the words of plato, is there a form of "beauty" that exists independently of its particulars?
yes, these are all rhetorical questions... i can't really explain to you why i find blonde hair and blue eyes attractive... or why we like shiny and sparkly things... why blue is my favourite colour... but of course, these preferences, if you want to call them that, are not rigid... i always joke with my friends that i eat from the international buffet... i look as good in red as i do in blue... and i appreciate impressionism for its subtlety as much as i enjoy surrealism for its imaginative fantasticality (yes, i made that word up)...
we'd all like to say that everyone's beautiful in every single way... but really... as jim carrey said in "liar, liar", that's just something ugly people say to make themselves feel better... LOL... ok, i'm kidding... no one's "ugly"... i think it's more the case that they just don't happen to be beautiful in the eyes of the particular beholder making that judgment at the time...
but, despite those egalitarian sentiments, we still have to discriminate in life... such a dirty word, it seems... but we do it all the time... we pick out clothes and homes and things and friends and partners and spouses based on a certain sense of attraction... "aesthetic" is not restricted to the physical, but encompasses the range of judgments we make about our particular "object"... i suppose, if we can't have perfection, we can at least try to find small doses of it in the world around us...
but i'd like more than a dose of what i saw at the gym...
come to think of it...
"dear santa..."
--------------------
Current mood: flushed
Current music: Alanis Morissette -- Ironic
posted by þΛųL jØŋαŦhΛŋ @ 21:20
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home