All love in this world is a token; a breadcrumb that leads to something more. To confuse the token for real thing is enter Dante’s dark wood; lost following the moon rather than the sun. How one goes about distinguishing token from reality, moon from sun, is the hard part. It is here, where needed most that reason by itself fails. Think of all the most important decisions one makes in this life and the conclusion must be reached that reason, even with empirical evidence often fails to determine the outcome. Who to marry? What job to take? What house to buy? What ethics to follow?
When we were children our world was fresh and mysterious; adults were demigods; truths simple. At some point we discover that much of this worldview is false, and too many descend into cynicism, casting overboard everything they had been taught as misguided illusion at best, lies at worst. Far too many never awake from this slumber of the spirit, and worse, don’t even try to awaken from the nightmare existence they’ve created where they think themselves an “accidental collocation of atoms,” to quote Bertrand Russell.
We should be more generous in our evaluation; one cannot appreciate Art from this perspective. It beckons from afar and it takes an act of faith in our fellow man to follow. The understanding of Art and life is a journey; to truly understand great art we must be great-souled; to be great-souled we must begin the journey; we cannot begin the journey without having faith that it will help us understand who we are, what we are, where we are and why we live.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
Pope’s “Essay on Man”
No. 53: “All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee”
All love in this world is a token; a breadcrumb that leads to something more. To confuse the token for real thing is enter Dante’s dark wood; lost following the moon rather than the sun. How one goes about distinguishing token from reality, moon from sun, is the hard part. It is here, where needed most that reason by itself fails. Think of all the most important decisions one makes in this life and the conclusion must be reached that reason, even with empirical evidence often fails to determine the outcome. Who to marry? What job to take? What house to buy? What ethics to follow?
When we were children our world was fresh and mysterious; adults were demigods; truths simple. At some point we discover that much of this worldview is false, and too many descend into cynicism, casting overboard everything they had been taught as misguided illusion at best, lies at worst. Far too many never awake from this slumber of the spirit, and worse, don’t even try to awaken from the nightmare existence they’ve created where they think themselves an “accidental collocation of atoms,” to quote Bertrand Russell.
We should be more generous in our evaluation; one cannot appreciate Art from this perspective. It beckons from afar and it takes an act of faith in our fellow man to follow. The understanding of Art and life is a journey; to truly understand great art we must be great-souled; to be great-souled we must begin the journey; we cannot begin the journey without having faith that it will help us understand who we are, what we are, where we are and why we live.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
Pope’s “Essay on Man”