(no subject)
Friday, June 8, 2007
Far off beyond that blue horizon out there
He hears a far, almost inaudible music,
Fascinating, compelling, calling to him to come.
It comes from somewhere he has never been,
But which he will reach someday, and recognize
As the source that has always been reaching for him.
-Ted Reynolds, “Future Memories”
courtesy of http://www.netpoets.com/poems/life/0106008.htm
__________
I hesitate a moment, the air heavy and still, the faraway sounds of human activity muffled by the silence of the wooded clearing. A whisper of a breeze slides past my ear, and a single leaf lands lightly upon my shoulder, glides down into my waiting palms. It is red, with thin strips of gold that begin near the stem and radiate in a thousand tiny paths like veins, like neurons. The air is still once more, still before the coming day when I know the winds will blow like strong hands bending the trees, and I too will be carried away, back to the schools and homes and humans, back upon the trail that is my life.
The future, the unknown, the coming. Potential, possibility. This vast and unexplored mystery brings with it a critical imperative: the necessity of choice, of action. The decisions lay before me like the veins of that autumn leaf, leading everywhere. They lay before me like the connections within my brain, where all is possible with a single thought, as if the answer were within me and all I have to do is discover it amidst the river of my streaming consciousness.
Home now, the summer is my forest. For a brief moment, the world is quiet and calm, and I am trying, with the greatest focus of thought and determination of will, to hear that “almost inaudible music” that calls to me. The speakers broadcasting this music are my passions and my achievements; the ear that is hearing it is my knowledge and my reason. Over the past year, the music has changed its melody. Or has it? Were the speakers set at the wrong volumes, emphasizing the insignificant and hiding the vitally important? Was it distorted by an ear that misjudged? Or has the person to whom the ear belongs been transformed?
It just may be a bit of each. But I stand here now, examining all the information available to me, and I have chosen a path to follow, the music of my future, a vein of gold that will hopefully lead me to “the source that has always been reaching for [me].”
Is there one ultimate destination, one ultimate place in life that will provide us with the most happiness? In a world of innumerable choices, leading to millions of people and places, I cannot believe so. Surely various paths follow the trail of our hearts and minds, leading to a paradise where happiness is intertwined with work and the days are interwoven by a thread of progress and creativity. As I look to the future, I know that I will be joyful and proud to discover just one.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
…the beautiful faces
Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream
-Joyce Kilmer, “Vision”
__________
I have been told that one significant benefit of having close friends or a spouse is the ability to see ourselves reflected in them. The world that we see around us, it was explained to me, is complete save our presence in it. Developing a relationship with someone, as a result, can reinforce (but never create) our own self-image.
One method of examining this claim is to observe the consequences that occur in the absence of such relationships. Loneliness, according to author Ayn Rand, is “an intense desire to share [values and conscious convictions] with a friend who would understand.”1 Thus, as most of us have likely experienced, loneliness is not simply the desire to be around any sort of people; it is, rather, the desire to be around people with whom we share certain principles and ideas. Picture, for instance, being the only virtuous person in society of cruel and vicious criminals. This would certainly result in loneliness, despite the ample opportunity for social interaction.
In addition to contributing to happiness, friendship and love may actually encourage productivity and virtue. In the aforementioned example, the virtuous person would be surrounded by people who are worshippers of robbery and vandalism, people who would be unmoved by feats of mental ability used for creative and productive work. It would be extraordinarily difficult for this person to remain motivated and passionate, in the face of those who look upon his efforts as valueless and unremarkable.
In a society of others like himself, however, he would be granted the priceless reward of respect. Respect, encompassing a recognition of his worth and the worth of his work, the task to which he devotes his life. As I wrote before, however, this respect is not the primary goal of his productive work, but rather a logical result, a confirmation of his own self-esteem. It is, moreover, the recognition of another human being who holds the same standard of value, a companionship sealed with a stamp of understanding, of acknowledgement, of mutual admiration.
In this way, what we see in others can be a double reflection: a reflection of ourselves manifested both in the form of respect and in the form of a similar character and philosophy, because friends and loves, “the travelers you choose to share your journey [with,]…must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.”2
1 Ayn Rand, The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution, 231
2 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1020
Far off beyond that blue horizon out there
He hears a far, almost inaudible music,
Fascinating, compelling, calling to him to come.
It comes from somewhere he has never been,
But which he will reach someday, and recognize
As the source that has always been reaching for him.
-Ted Reynolds, “Future Memories”
courtesy of http://www.netpoets.com/poems/life/0106008.htm
__________
I hesitate a moment, the air heavy and still, the faraway sounds of human activity muffled by the silence of the wooded clearing. A whisper of a breeze slides past my ear, and a single leaf lands lightly upon my shoulder, glides down into my waiting palms. It is red, with thin strips of gold that begin near the stem and radiate in a thousand tiny paths like veins, like neurons. The air is still once more, still before the coming day when I know the winds will blow like strong hands bending the trees, and I too will be carried away, back to the schools and homes and humans, back upon the trail that is my life.
The future, the unknown, the coming. Potential, possibility. This vast and unexplored mystery brings with it a critical imperative: the necessity of choice, of action. The decisions lay before me like the veins of that autumn leaf, leading everywhere. They lay before me like the connections within my brain, where all is possible with a single thought, as if the answer were within me and all I have to do is discover it amidst the river of my streaming consciousness.
Home now, the summer is my forest. For a brief moment, the world is quiet and calm, and I am trying, with the greatest focus of thought and determination of will, to hear that “almost inaudible music” that calls to me. The speakers broadcasting this music are my passions and my achievements; the ear that is hearing it is my knowledge and my reason. Over the past year, the music has changed its melody. Or has it? Were the speakers set at the wrong volumes, emphasizing the insignificant and hiding the vitally important? Was it distorted by an ear that misjudged? Or has the person to whom the ear belongs been transformed?
It just may be a bit of each. But I stand here now, examining all the information available to me, and I have chosen a path to follow, the music of my future, a vein of gold that will hopefully lead me to “the source that has always been reaching for [me].”
Is there one ultimate destination, one ultimate place in life that will provide us with the most happiness? In a world of innumerable choices, leading to millions of people and places, I cannot believe so. Surely various paths follow the trail of our hearts and minds, leading to a paradise where happiness is intertwined with work and the days are interwoven by a thread of progress and creativity. As I look to the future, I know that I will be joyful and proud to discover just one.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
…the beautiful faces
Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream
-Joyce Kilmer, “Vision”
__________
I have been told that one significant benefit of having close friends or a spouse is the ability to see ourselves reflected in them. The world that we see around us, it was explained to me, is complete save our presence in it. Developing a relationship with someone, as a result, can reinforce (but never create) our own self-image.
One method of examining this claim is to observe the consequences that occur in the absence of such relationships. Loneliness, according to author Ayn Rand, is “an intense desire to share [values and conscious convictions] with a friend who would understand.”1 Thus, as most of us have likely experienced, loneliness is not simply the desire to be around any sort of people; it is, rather, the desire to be around people with whom we share certain principles and ideas. Picture, for instance, being the only virtuous person in society of cruel and vicious criminals. This would certainly result in loneliness, despite the ample opportunity for social interaction.
In addition to contributing to happiness, friendship and love may actually encourage productivity and virtue. In the aforementioned example, the virtuous person would be surrounded by people who are worshippers of robbery and vandalism, people who would be unmoved by feats of mental ability used for creative and productive work. It would be extraordinarily difficult for this person to remain motivated and passionate, in the face of those who look upon his efforts as valueless and unremarkable.
In a society of others like himself, however, he would be granted the priceless reward of respect. Respect, encompassing a recognition of his worth and the worth of his work, the task to which he devotes his life. As I wrote before, however, this respect is not the primary goal of his productive work, but rather a logical result, a confirmation of his own self-esteem. It is, moreover, the recognition of another human being who holds the same standard of value, a companionship sealed with a stamp of understanding, of acknowledgement, of mutual admiration.
In this way, what we see in others can be a double reflection: a reflection of ourselves manifested both in the form of respect and in the form of a similar character and philosophy, because friends and loves, “the travelers you choose to share your journey [with,]…must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.”2
1 Ayn Rand, The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution, 231
2 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1020