Kafka
Abi: This week, we decided to take a favourite quotation and look at representing each half in our own way. My suggestion of Dolly Parton’s infamous “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” was sidelined in favour of something a little more intellectual by Franz Kafka. And so we have this. The quotation put me in mind of the Aesthetic theory of The Line of Beauty which always puts me in mind of a Violin or the curve of a Woman’s hip. That is actually my handwriting but actually using ink on skin proved disastrous, as you can imagine.
This quote is pretty apt in many ways, it relates to the way I think about life and all the amazing things I have seen from a very young age. When we are young we can appreciate beauty without agenda, without prejudice and without a perverse need to improve upon it. Age and the experience of living can all impact on our perceptions of beauty: “That Woman would be more beautiful with a breast augmentation”, “The Seventh Wonder of the World could do with some landscaping”. As we age we can become arrogant, we stop seeing beauty for what it is and we begin to seek greater forms of perfection. An appreciation for beauty, so easily obtained in the modern age, becomes a curse as well as a blessing. We become spoilt, over sated, unable to see past what we have come to regard as the norm. We may not be able to halt the sands of time, but we can remain forever young in our way of thinking.
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Seb: I’ve ranted and raved about childhood before. I actually believe most of the world’s woes could be banished with the birth of one or two generations of sound, sane, well-adjusted children.
Appreciation of beauty, the lack thereof, is endemic. Just one negligent parent can start a cascade of crap that results in a society of shit. A society where kids just don’t give a damn, where beauty goes unregarded, unacknowledged. And beauty MUST be seen and heard and felt or it withers and dies.
The sad thing is, we’re now at the point where immense beauty is just a few clicks away. You can be anywhere in the world — Giza, Yosemite, Rome — in just a few hours.
Immeasurable beauty has never been so EASY to experience — but if we ever stop and let it wither, if we let the beauty die, then so will we.
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Click either photo to visit FLICKR.
Carly Findlay
Jun 7, 2010
Those photos are stunning. I haven’t actually read your text as my mind has been blown by the photos. About to read
Carly Findlay
Jun 7, 2010
I despise vanity, and the need for physical improvement to make something more beautiful. I see beauty in so many places. Thank you for this post.
sebastian
Jun 7, 2010
Thank you!
Abi
Jun 7, 2010
Ya hear that? Blowing minds we are! Thanks very much