Last night we watched the film Baraka. It's a non-verbal documentary that uncovers the connectedness between us - from our devotions, our survival, our beauty, our horrors, to our triumphs, our mechanics, and our daily routine. There's ritual in the average day, as there's ritual in the ecstatic celebration. There's beauty in the pristine natural world, as there's beauty in the distressed and dilapidated urban sprawl. Gorgeous, gorgeous film.
Lately, I've been obsessed with the manifestation of "beauty" - not the contemporary, fashionable idea...but rather, the immersion of beauty in all things. All things. The beauty in mathematics, in simplicity, in tangles, in cycles, in weather, in language, in emptiness, in fullness, in decay, and in bloom. If I look for beauty in the checkout line, I will find it. If I look for beauty in gridlock, I will find it. It's so pervasive, I feel that there is nowhere where it is not. Yesterday I read an article about Viktor Frankl, who challenged himself to find beauty inside a concentration camp. I can barely conceive of the type of effort that would require, but the humility that brings to my interest is inspiring.
