Beauty

What is it?

Beauty is relegated to the visual, the aural, the tactile. It’s easily defined by its relationship to our senses. What if it’s more? What if how we experience beauty is only on the surface? We are lazy creatures when it comes to defining what is in front of us as just that. That’s a beautiful tree, person, boat…ad infinitum.

Giving witness to the day, absorbing the sun on our bodies, and taking a life-affirming deep breath, I believe to be the formless, ethereal beauty that gives form to beauty as our senses have come to know it.

Only recently have I given it much thought, and in both instances it came to me in the way of film. The first was in a movie that was centered around a middle aged man living a very simple life. Every morning he would open his door, look up to the sky, take a deep breath with a smile of joy on his face and gently step out into his day. There lies beauty in loving the experience of being alive. Such a simple step forward; or is it?

There is a very similar view of beauty that I’ve stumbled upon here on Substack. It takes the form of a short video. An actor for whom I have in recent years gained a great deal of respect, Andrew Scott has a way of digging into the character as it exists in his own self. This defining of beauty is again expressed in the simple experiencing of being alive in the face of the day.

Being mindful of one’s existence and the simple beauty that exists within.