There's a fire that burns in the hearts of so many who see the world around them and are at a loss to understand why it isn't what they imagine it must be. It is a flame of youth. It is also a turn of reason because reason says it could run better, if it weren't for the chaos of human impulse and the mud of earth which has always been so much more powerful than reason. The powerful nexus of primitive interests, infantile and apish, has always defeated reason. Thus, the 'should be' and the 'will be' are so very far apart. We trudge to the ideal like a romantic after the goal that we know we will never fully realise. The only consolation is that the path on the way is tolerable to our needs. Reason explains the phenomena in the cosmos; it is not governed by it. That is why reality always falls below expectation. The life must always deal with chaos. For this reason utopia is a stupid concept. And the impulse to create perfection in society, misguided. Yet at the sametime, there must be a set of ideals otherwise all is just and all is same and nothing matters. There must be an idea because at every turn our physiology distracts us from intelligent life. Our bodies, of the spear-throwing mold, abide by adrenaline and the reptilian. The neo and cerebral cortices are always asked second. The frontal lobes consulted as afterthought. We are afraid of the dark even when we know nothing is there to harm. We jealously guard our boundaries even when we know there's no threat. We are ever watchful over the dinner table even when we know there's plenty. We are in thrall to the printed money bill even when we are not in poverty. At many passes, our own nature quenches the fire of idealism. The 'should be' and the 'will be' are continentally different because we know what one is, yet we are controlled by the other.
A slight paraphrase of Aristotle says that of drama there are four ways: what was, what is, what will be and what should be. For this reason art can reach what we with great trepidation call perfection, because it's is unencumbered by the common and real. It can be the 'should be' without prejudice or contradiction from the real. It can combine 'what was' with what 'should be' and, if done eloquently enough, can suffer no reprimand from the real. If the artist is only interested in 'what is' and what 'will be' then he is a deep, penetrative soul who seeks truth. If the artist is one who considers 'what was' and what 'should be', then he is an idealist, a romantic, a rhapsode, a dolorous pinner after bountiful meadows beyond an unreachable hill. But criticism has well instructed that no artist is ever truly of one distinction or the other. It is a combination of all and that is what makes Aristotle's picture complete. The artist, with brush tipped in expectation, writer with pen pregnant, sculptor with sensitive hands, musician with high attenuated ear, or act on the stage was never such a dullard as not to know that there was first the idea then the thing.
It all begins in beauty. In our birth.
We are all born free to kiss the sky. Each succeeding day is a diminishment of that promise. The fire burns brightest in those that remain convinced of this early hope. How the imagination soars! How sad is the life of the one who cherishes the greatest degree of freedom, how much they have to reconcile with the real! You want to skip glad through meadows and woods, but what of food what of territory, power and survival. You want to place your mind in the grand stimulant of arithmetic, what of your body and all its needs. In short, the languid stepped, delicate sweetness lives in the charm of the ironic. Between the ideal and real. between the cardinal paradox that we know we we will die yet in the mean time must live and the irony that drips down from that original contradiction. In the bitter-sweetness and sweet-bitterness.
Thinking is for the intelligent. Feeling is for genius. One is done in fine foolishness, the other in ponderous sobriety. One is a child looking at the stars, the other studying the terrain. Idiocy is for everyone else. The addition of these sums bears out one conclusion. That at the least we must have a moral code which to live by. So, if anything else, at least the moral law, as agreed upon by the consensus, challenged by the thinker, criticized by the artist, mocked by genius and disregarded by the anarchic, will be the stitches in the fabric.
Nothing is certain. Should a master intelligence arrive, it cannot last forever and its reach cannot be infinite. There is no God. In lieu of these deficiencies, labeled scandalous by some, let us be moral. Let us be moral irrespective of the real or ideal. And in this lovely scheme we will find truth. That is not just a pretty observation. As a see-saw is hard to balance, truth sits in equilibrium. Between dark death and light life; Or up and down; Left and right; Big and small. It is not, then, a delicate throwaway beneficence of Keats to equate truth with beauty. How can not harmony please? How cannot the unconscious pleasure of feeling the moral, not be equivalent to the thinking of truth?
The moral comes from truth. Truth borne well brings a tear to the eye of the hearer, honor to the bearer. It sets you free, by moving you closer to your natural born position, at liberty. Truth is love. Truth is love for the poorest. Truth is taking the side of the victim. Truth is sympathy of the sufferer. Truth is brotherhood with the wretched. Truth is knowing how small man is in cosmos, how big he is in society and how sweet it is to know the difference. Truth is beauty before beauty is seen. Before truth exists.
So where with old faithful hearts to we take ourselves long weary to? And with what diminished memory can we do there? How sad the petty brain in his seat, slave-like sits! Like a robot he thinks in numbers and travail. Does that answer to the dignity of man? But the faithful heart reaching his destination looks around and lends a hand. He builds up around him the future. He loves fraternity. He wants to bring all the species to the best of it sense. But in many parts, war, thirst, famine, want stand in the way, blockades to the better. Man cannot be a success unless all are successful. That will never be. Only intelligence after man could be all successful.
So we must set moral goals into the future. We must follow their path with no hope of treading their final spot. We must take the worst in our midst in arm, embrace the poor, help others. The ardent will want their fire. Let them flame on. Life always exists between hope and reality. The artist lives therefore something of a privileged life. Because he knows the difference. Then shine on!
A slight paraphrase of Aristotle says that of drama there are four ways: what was, what is, what will be and what should be. For this reason art can reach what we with great trepidation call perfection, because it's is unencumbered by the common and real. It can be the 'should be' without prejudice or contradiction from the real. It can combine 'what was' with what 'should be' and, if done eloquently enough, can suffer no reprimand from the real. If the artist is only interested in 'what is' and what 'will be' then he is a deep, penetrative soul who seeks truth. If the artist is one who considers 'what was' and what 'should be', then he is an idealist, a romantic, a rhapsode, a dolorous pinner after bountiful meadows beyond an unreachable hill. But criticism has well instructed that no artist is ever truly of one distinction or the other. It is a combination of all and that is what makes Aristotle's picture complete. The artist, with brush tipped in expectation, writer with pen pregnant, sculptor with sensitive hands, musician with high attenuated ear, or act on the stage was never such a dullard as not to know that there was first the idea then the thing.
It all begins in beauty. In our birth.
We are all born free to kiss the sky. Each succeeding day is a diminishment of that promise. The fire burns brightest in those that remain convinced of this early hope. How the imagination soars! How sad is the life of the one who cherishes the greatest degree of freedom, how much they have to reconcile with the real! You want to skip glad through meadows and woods, but what of food what of territory, power and survival. You want to place your mind in the grand stimulant of arithmetic, what of your body and all its needs. In short, the languid stepped, delicate sweetness lives in the charm of the ironic. Between the ideal and real. between the cardinal paradox that we know we we will die yet in the mean time must live and the irony that drips down from that original contradiction. In the bitter-sweetness and sweet-bitterness.
Thinking is for the intelligent. Feeling is for genius. One is done in fine foolishness, the other in ponderous sobriety. One is a child looking at the stars, the other studying the terrain. Idiocy is for everyone else. The addition of these sums bears out one conclusion. That at the least we must have a moral code which to live by. So, if anything else, at least the moral law, as agreed upon by the consensus, challenged by the thinker, criticized by the artist, mocked by genius and disregarded by the anarchic, will be the stitches in the fabric.
Nothing is certain. Should a master intelligence arrive, it cannot last forever and its reach cannot be infinite. There is no God. In lieu of these deficiencies, labeled scandalous by some, let us be moral. Let us be moral irrespective of the real or ideal. And in this lovely scheme we will find truth. That is not just a pretty observation. As a see-saw is hard to balance, truth sits in equilibrium. Between dark death and light life; Or up and down; Left and right; Big and small. It is not, then, a delicate throwaway beneficence of Keats to equate truth with beauty. How can not harmony please? How cannot the unconscious pleasure of feeling the moral, not be equivalent to the thinking of truth?
The moral comes from truth. Truth borne well brings a tear to the eye of the hearer, honor to the bearer. It sets you free, by moving you closer to your natural born position, at liberty. Truth is love. Truth is love for the poorest. Truth is taking the side of the victim. Truth is sympathy of the sufferer. Truth is brotherhood with the wretched. Truth is knowing how small man is in cosmos, how big he is in society and how sweet it is to know the difference. Truth is beauty before beauty is seen. Before truth exists.
So where with old faithful hearts to we take ourselves long weary to? And with what diminished memory can we do there? How sad the petty brain in his seat, slave-like sits! Like a robot he thinks in numbers and travail. Does that answer to the dignity of man? But the faithful heart reaching his destination looks around and lends a hand. He builds up around him the future. He loves fraternity. He wants to bring all the species to the best of it sense. But in many parts, war, thirst, famine, want stand in the way, blockades to the better. Man cannot be a success unless all are successful. That will never be. Only intelligence after man could be all successful.
So we must set moral goals into the future. We must follow their path with no hope of treading their final spot. We must take the worst in our midst in arm, embrace the poor, help others. The ardent will want their fire. Let them flame on. Life always exists between hope and reality. The artist lives therefore something of a privileged life. Because he knows the difference. Then shine on!
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