Category: Beauty/Aesthetics
Looking Back To See The Future
There are two ways to see the future. One is to receive a vision of all time and all reality. The other is to study the past for patterns that are timeless. The first is granted to only a tiny...
On “The Beauty of the World”
This is a short essay on Jonathan Edwards essay The Beauty of the World, written this month by one of my high school students. I found it to be compelling in its simplicity and insight. Reprinted with the permission of...
VI. Towards Gratitude
Roots of Self-Responsibility and Optimism “All is well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” Julian of Norwich I have suggested that Meister Eckhart is right when he says “Thank You” is not just...
V. Dependence is the Only Psychological Fact
Joy is the Only Psychological Fact “All day I think about it, then at night I say it: Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere,...
IV. Entitlement is the Only Sin
Entitlement is the only sin. “Value the least gifts no less than the greatest, and simple graces as especial favours. If you remember the dignity of the Giver, no gift will seem small or mean, for nothing can be valueless...
III. A Rough Definition of Gratitude
Gratitude Is the Spontaneous Emotion of Thanksgiving and Happiness in Response to Some Unmerited Good. When someone gives you a gift you did not expect and did not deserve, you ought (and most people do) feel a spontaneous sense of...
Worse than Asparagus: Charlie Lehardy on Jazz
Charlie Lehardy thinks jazz is (gasp!) worse than asparagus: Jazz may be worse than asparagus. As a musician, I have great respect for the virtuosity of jazz artists, most of whom are masters of their instruments. I can relate to...
II. Appropriate Emotions
Appropriate Emotions The first and foremost fact we must acquaint ourselves with is that certain emotions are appropriate given a stimulus and certain others are not. See CS Lewis for a detailed and robust argument in Abolition of Man. For...
Is Beauty Objective?
If you are like most people alive today, you believe ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ This is exactly what I was taught and grew up believing — but no one ever told me that (in view of...
The Body of Music
Music has a body. Or, as Jeremy Begbie argues in the latest Books and Culture, the expression of music is inseparable from corporeality. Music making and music hearing are ways we engage the physical world. Even in the case of...