Clarity

I think the most beautiful parts of life are the ones we understand least. Not difficult to understand like theoretical physics or quantum mechanics understanding (which aren't difficult but rather impossible), but those where there isn't a right answer. Those areas that the more you try and understand it or conceptualize it, you end up further in the dark forest of confusion, rife with cognitive dissonance, frustration, and head scratching. Those areas that can challenge us on an axiomatic, moral level, or on an intellectual and philosophical one. Those that the deeper you dig, mostly all you get is dirty.

Those questions, those ideas, that don't have an easy answer, often are the ones that leave us the most emotional when we come upon them. When we happen upon an instance where we are forced to deal with them head-on. No longer solely on an intellectual field, but in practice, and without an easy answer.

Those questions are the materials of life's greatest construction: beauty.

For example, when you look out over the ocean on a sunny evening, you can't help but be floored by the beauty of the scene. You know the ones: where the sun is slowly drifting towards the horizon, throwing its rays over the infinite expanse of glassy tide below it, bleeding a complete watercolor spectrum upon the sky. It's powerful. It is nothing short of incredible, and no matter how many times you see one, it always seems to catch you off-guard.

But why is it so beautiful? What about it makes it so incredible, so grandiose? Why are we so impressed by an occurrence that has happened--without fail--for as long as our planet has existed? You can try and delve into specifics, but the further you go trying to explain the radiance of it all, the more you find yourself struggling for the words to do it justice. Trying to ascertain what exactly makes that scene so breathtaking. The harder you try, the more flummoxing the experience seems to get, and harder it becomes to truly comprehend what you are appreciating.

But in that struggle lies what I find most powerful of all: the simple fact that it cannot be fully explained makes it more beautiful. It truly is a complete masterpiece, with every brush-stroke on the canvas serving a more total purpose than we can possibly explain. I always seem to find the further you go down the rabbit hole, the more you seem to end up less sure than you were before of what exactly it is about it that was so incredible, but more sure of the fact that it is, in fact, incredible.

Love is one of those "sunset topics," if you will. Anyone who has ever truly, wholly, and completely loved someone knows the incredible, irrational, and plain insane feelings that love evokes from its spellbound participants. In its power, there is a special kind of beauty; a beauty that comes (at least partly) from the inability to quantify or explain it. Much like a sunset, the more you try to explain love, you are greeted by layer after layer of complexities and intricacies, each with several more roots spreading to other reasons and pieces of the puzzle of what makes it so beautiful. From that complexity comes further inabilities to completely convey the emotion explicitly, but a deepened appreciate for just how complexly beautiful it truly is.

I love those digs. I love exploring the depths of life's greatest themes, as they simply get more beautiful the more you put into them. And sometimes, after enough digging, comes a moment of near-complete clarity. Where for an instant, you're out of the woods and into the light. And anyone along with you on that dig will see that light, too. As soon as it comes, it flees back into the forest of complexities, but leaves you in further awe of the simple wonders this life has in store for those who care to look close enough. It's why we love great literature, great theater (be it on stage, or screens large and small), and great music: it can provide a tunnel through the forest to the light, to see a glimpse of the beauty that surrounds us. In that beauty, there is truth. And if you know me at all, Veritas est silentium.

I guess you can say my life is a quest for the ability to express myself perfectly. It's a quest I never fully expect to complete, but that hasn't stopped me from trying. Call it the Virgo in me. Even if the goal is impossible, I'm finding myself enjoying the struggle more and more as the years roll past.