Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Which lends itself to the understanding that so is ugly. Both are personal, private even, and completely a reflection of the beholder and not that which is beheld. If you and I agree that something is beautiful or ugly, does that make it so? Yes, but only to us. If you think it one way and I the other, which is it? A friend of mine used to tell me how much she loved the striking red color of our desert. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, “and such a relief for the eyes after hour upon hour of that horrid, ugly brown California/Nevada desert on the way up here.” Yet when time permits, I stop along the road in that same brown desert and marvel at its stunning beauty. No, it’s not red like ours, it’s not lush and green, there aren’t banks of brilliant flowers, magnificent waterfalls or snow-capped purple mountains silhouetted against an azure sky. But it’s beautiful just the same, in its own unique way. The first thing that always strikes me is it’s still possible to stop along the freeway and look out at a stretch of that desert where nothing is built. No power lines, no buildings, no visible roads. Beautiful. In those moments I try to imagine what it must have been like to cross that land in a wagon or on horseback. No power grid, no buildings with hospitable hosts, no roads. Did they find this place beautiful or like my friend, ugly and forbidding? In the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t been that long, and those few remaining untouched areas haven’t changed appreciably in the last 150 years. Were they ugly then and beautiful now? Or is it the other way around - they were beautiful then and ugly now? The answer, of course, is yes to all of it. They are what we choose to see in them. Her ugly vista is my expanse of beauty. Lovely from the side of the road with a Snapple in hand. Forbidding from the seat of a wagon with no water in sight. And so it is with each other. “I expected nothing but greatness from you,” he said. Why? I expected to be able to produce nothing but mediocrity.
Why would he expect more. . . find more? Because he chose to. Why did I expect less. . . find less? Because I chose to.
Is it great now because someone else has named it that? And do I have the power to morph it from average to great just by my choosing it to be thus? The object has not changed. Only my perception can change. It’s all in my eye, and the way I choose to behold. How beautiful is my desert? As beautiful as I choose to believe it is.
I'm trying to get back in the habit of writing every day. Lately, I've been working on character sketches. Some of those will find their way here, in the form of individual comments to this post.
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A friend of mine used to tell me how much she loved the striking red color of our desert. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, “and such a relief for the eyes after hour upon hour of that horrid, ugly brown California/Nevada desert on the way up here.”
Yet when time permits, I stop along the road in that same brown desert and marvel at its stunning beauty. No, it’s not red like ours, it’s not lush and green, there aren’t banks of brilliant flowers, magnificent waterfalls or snow-capped purple mountains silhouetted against an azure sky. But it’s beautiful just the same, in its own unique way.
The first thing that always strikes me is it’s still possible to stop along the freeway and look out at a stretch of that desert where nothing is built. No power lines, no buildings, no visible roads. Beautiful.
In those moments I try to imagine what it must have been like to cross that land in a wagon or on horseback. No power grid, no buildings with hospitable hosts, no roads. Did they find this place beautiful or like my friend, ugly and forbidding?
In the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t been that long, and those few remaining untouched areas haven’t changed appreciably in the last 150 years. Were they ugly then and beautiful now? Or is it the other way around - they were beautiful then and ugly now?
The answer, of course, is yes to all of it. They are what we choose to see in them. Her ugly vista is my expanse of beauty. Lovely from the side of the road with a Snapple in hand. Forbidding from the seat of a wagon with no water in sight.
And so it is with each other. “I expected nothing but greatness from you,” he said.
Why? I expected to be able to produce nothing but mediocrity.
Why would he expect more. . . find more?
Because he chose to.
Why did I expect less. . . find less?
Because I chose to.
Is it great now because someone else has named it that? And do I have the power to morph it from average to great just by my choosing it to be thus?
The object has not changed. Only my perception can change. It’s all in my eye, and the way I choose to behold.
How beautiful is my desert? As beautiful as I choose to believe it is.