What made your life more beautiful?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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My premise is simple: I want to see the most beautiful, moving works of art, nature, literature, music, morality, ethics etc before I pass. I’m still (hopefully) a long ways away from death, but that doesn’t change anything.

I used to not read much at all. When I decided to read The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (an amazing heart-wrencher), that’s more or less when I noticed I was not filling my life with all it had to offer. Similar experiences such as that and significant mental and spiritual struggles (such as a life confession) I’ve overcome have helped me notice the beauty that lies in even the more mundane corners of life…

What I ask of you all is simply this: what made your life more beautiful? What is something you’ve experienced, things that you’ve noticed, demons that you’ve overcome that make you cry not because of sadness, but because of the inherent emotionally moving strengths of these things?

Thank you in advance, I hope we can help one another.

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When I discovered the writings and teachings of Buddhism I gave up a life of extreme hatred. Through meditation my anxiety, anger, and impatience have become things of the past, I have come to understand inner peace upon reflection.

Meeting my wife and having a family together also made me learn how to love in life again. Previously before all of that in my life for the longest time I loved nothing at all.

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A couple of years ago, my former crack dealer just out of the blue happened to move relatively close to where I’m living… which circumstances being as they are would seem very unlikely. I counted this as a blessing, nothing short of the hand of god.

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You are capable of more, you dolt.

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I guess it’s that simple, isn’t it

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It really is, yes.

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Haha, okay. Guess that works

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“You are capable of more”

That’s why I’m called an polymath.

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…by whom?

You’re not funny.

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In fact, as a polymath, i excel at producing comedy and have a strong intuitive sense for the humorous.

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I’m not a polymath yet I’m still funny

Maybe just because I’m an idiot

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Your shots at humor are awkward and strained, too anxious. They betray a longing to ‘fit in’ and are too careful not to offend. There is no schadenfreude in any of it… which is the true mark of those who laugh last and experience the lowly world in which everything can only appear as a parody, caricature, or farce.

Humor is the one soul humor (not the medicine sort) that gives man his pride in a much deeper way than any accomplishment or fulfilling one’s duties, etc.

There is the first - physical self empowerment (health, exercise, diet, environment control, etc). That’s pride generator number one. The second is the proper attitude toward existence. Being able to recognize and even invite its ultimate absurdity.

Every little laugh is an attack on the world. That convulsive quacking sound we make when we laugh is the higher prefrontal cortex elevating itself above the vulgar lower regions of the reptilian brain and instead of freaking out when someone trips and breaks an ankle but the fall was funny or we lose our home to the bank… which should otherwise be serious matters… we understand that this is simply absurd… that this should be able to happen at all. In that moment, we shoot up above the world and look down on it. In that moment, one becomes a god, looks at the world, and judges; “i wouldn’t have done it this way if i were god.” And that right there is the second source of pride. Man’s belligerent refusal to accept the terms of existence while relishing in it as an artist would. The comedian is the grand heckler.

What is funny? Unexpectedness. The reversal of what is supposed to come. The pointing out of the little impotencies of man. His clumsiness, his brief powerlessness when he trips for some benign reason like stepping on a wiffle ball. How she thinks she’s hot in those spandex when she’s clinically obese. A great king being portrayed riding on a donkey in some propaganda art. This beautiful girl farts in the gas station and clears everyone out.

All this is otherwise despicable and pathetic, and it only becomes funny once one distances themselves from the design of the world. Laughing is making mischief upon a thing thought to be lower than oneself.

You possess none of this genuinely. Nor are you able to on account of your meekness and deep seated ressentiment (toward the world). Same with your homeboy Ecmandu. He has to be told something is a joke before he pretends to think it’s funny (because he’s too lowly to be able to laugh naturally)… or he attempts a joke, and it’s a disaster.

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And very, very, rarely does history produce a perfect human being by blending that greatest tonic emotion (humor) with that greatest task (art). One such instance was your homeboy Frank Zappa. This dude was more impor.. I shouldn’t even say ‘important’ because, again, it’s all absurd… but this dude was… better?.. than any Ceasar or Einstein will ever be. He created a gorgeous representation of Schopenhauer’s Will (the world) in its purest form, through music, while also uniting the analytical apollonian with the visceral and sometimes necessarily vulgar and profane dionysian in doing so.

Prerequisites for promethean greatness: atheism, technical ingenuity and talent, pride, and some art medium.

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Having kids is the most radically perspective-shifting thing I’ve ever done, and has added so much beauty to my life. I can’t recommend it for everyone, and it’s a real and continuing sacrifice. But it adds a kind of meaning that I didn’t really understand beforehand.

For books, I’d recommend Herman Hesse, especially Siddhartha, Damien, and Magister Ludi (also called “The Glass Bead Game”). Different books that helped me in different ways at different times in my life, but all helped me see types of beauty I hadn’t seen, or had forgotten about.

Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin is also beautiful and made a lasting impression. It’s a strange book because she doesn’t speak Chinese, but she’s a poet and writer who grew up reading the book in various translations. She brings a lot more ability with the English language than the average translator, and borrows from various scholarly translations to try to restore the original poetry of it. Read the end notes too, she is very thoughtful on the philosophy of translation.

One more book: Godel, Escher, Bach. A broad work on the nature of individuality and mind and math and art… hard to summarize. I’ve heard that some parts of it don’t hold up since the advent of AI, but I feel like a lot of how I understand AI is rooted in the more general lessons I took from it. And for all its deep philosophy, there is a real playfulness to the book that is contagious, absolutely opened vistas of beauty for me.

Music, probably because you mentioned death in the OP, I immediately thought of Mount Eerie’s Real Death. It’s brutally tragic, raw and unpolished, but you’re right that death is connected to beauty and this song is a moving demonstration.

Less depressing, Yo Yo Ma’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites helped me grok Bach and classical music (especially fun after Godel, Escher, Bach).

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Thanks for the informative response; I’ll have to check these out on my Kindle.

Additionally, marriage and kids are still in my life plan, but probably at least one USCG term down the road.

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8 posts were split to a new topic: I’ont smoke crizzack no more

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ART.

Books, music, painting, comic books.

Life would be an endless torture without these.

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I also collect comic books and regular books. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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Do you collect Capitain America?

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Star Trek
Star Wars
X-Men
Batman
Conan Barbarian
Very rare hard to find unique comics worth lots of money as well. (That I will never sell because they’re collectors items.)

:smiling_face_with_sunglasses: :+1:

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