Prelude : I try not to sound depressing when I speak or write. Even if I am feeling something negative, I try to put a colourful wrapper of humour around it, which disguises the negativity. I haven't quite struck humour here, so this paragraph serves as a "wrapper"- what follows is more of an observation than an outpuring. :)
The more I see of it, the more I believe that Life lacks Beauty. Our existence has too many chains, conditons and compromises. I have always held rules, duty and responsibility in decently high regard. I have always believed in order and routine, sometimes even found satisfaction in routine. Slowly but surely, I have lost my admiration for these things. Now there is the need for "beauty" in some form or another- something that can take us "high". All this is ambiguous- let me try and explain what I mean. By "high" I mean the feeling of appreciating something truly for what it is, not because there is a reason attached to it. By beauty I mean something that means so much to us, but whose place in our life we cannot explain purely by reason or logic, almost on the verge of being "mad": the "buzz" when you listen to brilliant music, a piece of writing or art that you love, sunset over the ocean, solving a problem not because you have to, but because you want to; falling in love with somone- it is all very personalized.
And there should be more of it. Beauty almost seems too fragile, there is always a point when a beautiful thing vanishes and somethign pulls us back into non-beautiful again. There are always the chains which don't let us pause as long as we want.
There is beauty in people too- which gives us friendship, gives us romance and love. But there are no fairytales- relationships sometimes seem to be a compromise, there is nothing perfect or indestructible about them. It takes what feels like a lifetime to keep them alive, and yet they can go up in flames any moment.
I don't really think we had a choice when it came to being put on this earth, among this drudgery and life that sometimes feels pointless. Now that we're here, we may as well make the most of it, and snatch as many moments of beauty as we are allowed. Each of us needs our own beautiful things to go back to- a favourite song, poetry, dance, art, physics, fast cars, maybe our sense of humour...
I wouldn't mind calling these things our own "escape" route. Given what a large scale mess this world is, an escape route to beauty is just what we need- something like tiramisu, different from daily bread.
