Who was it who said, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever?"
Ah yes.
It was John Keats in his poem Endymion, and I think he was wrong.
The last few days I have been in a place I've never been in before. They've been very dark days and I never, ever want to relive them. Not to go into details, I just want to say things in my life haven't been so hot lately.
And I started thinking about beautiful things in my life, whether they were character qualities, people, things, ideas, places I would soon be in, and events, and all I could think was who cares?
Not me.
I was depressed that nothing could make me believe in life again.
Usually there's something that can knock sense into me... spending time with my family, or something. I don't know. I just realized then that there's no inherit beauty in colors or sounds or objects. There was nothing beautiful around me.
I felt like I was mortally wounded.
I felt unable to break free, and as I cried myself to sleep last night I thought I'd never be free of this. It was not an option.
And it's not like I'm magically free now.
After I'm done with this post, I'll probably cry myself to sleep again tonight.
But something has changed.
The sky doesn't seem so dark anymore.
My thought is this: that beauty can't save me anymore. I was right, I suppose, to look for the beautiful things that make life worth living. But beautiful things aren't a joy forever. They tarnish or leave. Even things I loved about myself were messed up and unreliable.
There's nothing beautiful that can be held on to.
Like at the end of Matrix Revolutions, when Agent Smith tells Neo that only the human mind could create something so insipid as love. Why did Neo fight for love and beauty, when those things can tarnish and die? Everything he'd fought for was gone, even Trinity. Agent Smith demanded an answer.
Or like in the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Voldemort sneers at Harry for fighting for love. That did leave me a little hallow (no pun intended), since Harry had no good answer. Love was all he knew beyond the physical realm, and yet love IS in the physical realm; was there something beyond that worth fighting for?
I almost think Neo arrived closer to the truth when he told Agent Smith, "Because I choose to." He had a spirit that could go on fighting when he had nothing else to go on.
It's not a natural reason, it's an unnatural reason. It's a spiritual reason.
Why keep living when love and beauty fade? There's no reason to do so, or logic in it. But love and beauty and truth (and whatever other words and philosophy we use to describe what's good and right in the world) are only shadows of deeper spiritual truth. That's what gives them meaning and makes life worth living.
It reminds me of poetry class where we had to learn about stupid "noumenon and phenomenon". I never got what my teacher meant by those words, and apparently she meant something different that any philosophy writings I could find on the subject, but the basic idea of meaning behind our words and objects made sense to me.
There's a spiritual meaning behind what we see in the physical world, sort of as Plato described in his Metaphysics. The idea that we are trapped in a world of "senses" or "shadows" certainly fits, in real life and the Matrix. We can only catch glimpses of what Plato calls the "World of Eternal Forms", where true essence and substance is.
As a Christian, I know that world is the spiritual realm.
Christ created the physical realms and holds it together (John 1: 3, Colossians 1:17). That's the key: HE holds it together... He can hold me together. What he's joined, let no man (especially me) separate. His beauty and his truth make me able to stand my ground, and when I've done everything (even lost my mind and my sense of humor), to stand.
I'm not wrestling against flesh and blood, or this would be an easy fight.
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
TO THE FULL.
Ah yes.
It was John Keats in his poem Endymion, and I think he was wrong.
The last few days I have been in a place I've never been in before. They've been very dark days and I never, ever want to relive them. Not to go into details, I just want to say things in my life haven't been so hot lately.
And I started thinking about beautiful things in my life, whether they were character qualities, people, things, ideas, places I would soon be in, and events, and all I could think was who cares?
Not me.
I was depressed that nothing could make me believe in life again.
Usually there's something that can knock sense into me... spending time with my family, or something. I don't know. I just realized then that there's no inherit beauty in colors or sounds or objects. There was nothing beautiful around me.
I felt like I was mortally wounded.
I felt unable to break free, and as I cried myself to sleep last night I thought I'd never be free of this. It was not an option.
And it's not like I'm magically free now.
After I'm done with this post, I'll probably cry myself to sleep again tonight.
But something has changed.
The sky doesn't seem so dark anymore.
My thought is this: that beauty can't save me anymore. I was right, I suppose, to look for the beautiful things that make life worth living. But beautiful things aren't a joy forever. They tarnish or leave. Even things I loved about myself were messed up and unreliable.
There's nothing beautiful that can be held on to.
Like at the end of Matrix Revolutions, when Agent Smith tells Neo that only the human mind could create something so insipid as love. Why did Neo fight for love and beauty, when those things can tarnish and die? Everything he'd fought for was gone, even Trinity. Agent Smith demanded an answer.
Or like in the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Voldemort sneers at Harry for fighting for love. That did leave me a little hallow (no pun intended), since Harry had no good answer. Love was all he knew beyond the physical realm, and yet love IS in the physical realm; was there something beyond that worth fighting for?
I almost think Neo arrived closer to the truth when he told Agent Smith, "Because I choose to." He had a spirit that could go on fighting when he had nothing else to go on.
It's not a natural reason, it's an unnatural reason. It's a spiritual reason.
Why keep living when love and beauty fade? There's no reason to do so, or logic in it. But love and beauty and truth (and whatever other words and philosophy we use to describe what's good and right in the world) are only shadows of deeper spiritual truth. That's what gives them meaning and makes life worth living.
It reminds me of poetry class where we had to learn about stupid "noumenon and phenomenon". I never got what my teacher meant by those words, and apparently she meant something different that any philosophy writings I could find on the subject, but the basic idea of meaning behind our words and objects made sense to me.
There's a spiritual meaning behind what we see in the physical world, sort of as Plato described in his Metaphysics. The idea that we are trapped in a world of "senses" or "shadows" certainly fits, in real life and the Matrix. We can only catch glimpses of what Plato calls the "World of Eternal Forms", where true essence and substance is.
As a Christian, I know that world is the spiritual realm.
Christ created the physical realms and holds it together (John 1: 3, Colossians 1:17). That's the key: HE holds it together... He can hold me together. What he's joined, let no man (especially me) separate. His beauty and his truth make me able to stand my ground, and when I've done everything (even lost my mind and my sense of humor), to stand.
I'm not wrestling against flesh and blood, or this would be an easy fight.
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
TO THE FULL.
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