Odd and Beautiful
I have nothing to say today, but the same was true yesterday and the day before that, and I don’t want to abandon this blog, so please accept this token effort of free associating to a random book quote. (Yes, my book blog script has the option to select a random part of a random book for me, why do you ask?)
“What about spring?”
“Spring?”
“Spring. In Midgard. Where I come from. It isn’t happening this year. And if the winter continues, then everyone will die. People. Animals. Plants.”
Frosty blue eyes bigger than windows stared at Odd. “Why should I care about that?”
Odd said, “You should care because you care about beauty. And there won’t be any. There will just be dead things.”
“Dead things can be beautiful,” said the Frost Giant.
Odd and the Frost Giant, Neil Gaiman
Dead things can be beautiful. Artificial things can be beautiful. Aritificial structures can be even more beautiful when they are dead and decomposing, when they are forced to be part of our world instead of an idealistic wound that tries to transcend reality, as if going beyond reality into some platonic perfection was the point.
Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty.
Westworld
My access to beauty is so variable that it’s honestly ridiculous. There are days when I can see the beauty in anything and everybody. I would walk through the streets (this was in the Before Times), and I’d see the beauty in every face, every body that I encountered. And then, on the very next day, I’d go outside and everybody would seem drab and unappealing and like a shadow at best, a nuisance at worst. What gives?
I can’t really switch from one mode to the other, sadly. I can trigger both modes of observation for a very short time, but when I stop paying attention, I revert to the Mood of the Day. At least it’s a very easy calibration exercise.