The world has a very distorted view of perfection 

Yeah...I agree the world's view of perfection is distorted...but the above woman is beautiful..."perfect face, perfect hair", and a body type that was once considered perfect, if not in our current culture. Men usually dictate what is perfection when it comes to women's bodies, and women endlessly try to conform to the detriment of their self esteem.  If the above photo were the standard men said was acceptable...there would be thin women unable to gain weight that people would say are not perfect. If her hair was not full and shiny, if she had wrinkles, etc...Beauty and perfection from the inside out is not valued so much and it's sad.

ya i think shes totally sexy 

To have imperfection, you must have perfection. If perfection is largely matter of human definition, is not absolute, then there is no such thing as imperfection, only a different definition of perfection. Human beauty is a good example. Standards of beauty change with time, culture, and even individual taste. There are women I find attractive that bb probably does not and vice versa. I don't consider the women that I find attractive to be somehow more perfect than the ones I find unattractive; I just consider them more suited to my tastes. The goal in beauty should not be some abstract, absolute perfection (because there is no such thing) but finding your best feature and putting it forward.

Now, if we move to nature, I'd argue that nature is, by definition, beautiful and perfect in its way. It just may not always fit those human definitions of beauty and perfection that we try to apply to it. I love to watch storms, volcanoes, and other phenomena (from a safe distance, of course) because the forces and processes that create and propel them are just so wonderful to contemplate. The fact that they are destructive has no bearing on their beauty or perfection. We wouldn't exist without them and we are a blip on the radar. They were sculpting and shaping the world before we came along and they will sculpt and shape the world long after we are gone (likely by our own hand).

Perfection and imperfection are, then, human constructs that cause insane amounts of grief for some of us. I don't seek perfection save possibly in one respect - I seek to live in better relationship with those around me and the world I live in. And not applying arbitrary ideas about what is perfection is part of that.

Mendalla

I have yet to meet a perfectionist who is happy.

How could they be, when the perfection they seek is unobtainable?

Happiness is someone who's content to be "good enough", IMO.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with your last line. Aiming for contentment is an attainable goal.

Fat Lady? Is that an eternal line about the one kept in the dark and called psyche?

Will thought get you in the end? Encompass you ... as is?

Consider watching a mule walking away from you, if that was all there was would it remind you of a heart ... ... flawed?

Walter Brennan?

Is this not a perfect rendition of kissing your heart goodbye when you fall in love with the larger sole on which you stand ... networked unconsciously ... a dark pool from witch to draw? That's when one begins to think beyond a mortal emotional dimension.

Could one project ...... BUSS Prin. like KISS of de athe ... a following charge of ass Torah ... a mule for carrying intellect, unknown to men who can't read intuit?

The Shadow RIP'les for unknown rationale ... just look up at night for the sign ... impression ... but don't worship it ... it is meant for initiation of the pondering ... many don't, just do as they will, believing there is no consequence. Such lack of thought just broke all-there-is up into par's ... mis pell it as you like ... that's the trend! Good for veiling truth that must be dug into ... it's deep like TØom ... old Hebrew word ... dead tongue ... kilt by powerful men who couldn't deal with deeper (that's chaqah'n) matters! It you stir this matter do it with care ... a gentile thing ... beyond the powers ... like ethereal ... frothy ... quantum state ... you never know what'll come out of it without cultivation? Extend yourself?

Perfection is completeness; imperfection is incompleteness.

There are many beautiful people in the world who are imperfect for want of depth, dimensionality and engagement.  These are the folk who taught us that beauty is "skin deep" and just "in the eye of the beholder". Beauty merely awaits its discovery... it's usually there long before it's discerned.

And there are many people who fail popular culture's stereotyped "beauty" test but whose beauty is far closer to perfection.

(I'm not sure that the kind of person we usually call a "perfectionist" is necessarily seeking "completeness", Grim. "Good enough" can come very close to "perfection" when it's about being at ease with one's surroundings.)

Perfection is what makes natural beauty to easy to "get" and so difficult to reproduce or copy. 

Imperfection is what makes artifice so disappointing.

(Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.)

Solomon was great… but imperfect.

I have a view that beauty is God's language of love, and requiring oneself to seek out and enter fully into experiences of beauty is a key to completeness, to "perfection". (It's one that our attempts at worship seem often to overlook or undervalue.) 

I thought this woman was beautiful when I saw saw her on these steps:

... and when I saw her smile as we passed each other. I had the feeling she knew where she was going.

I don't think there is one human being who considers themselves, especially physically, perfect.  The plastic surgery industry (and the dollars that goes to it) is somewhat proof of that.

I think the woman in the photo is beautiful in her entirety  . . . but if I put my head on that same body I would not think the same.  Not because there is something wrong with her body, but because of my own sense of esteem.  I would probably feel the same way if you put my head on a supermodel with a super body.

Crazyheart . . . you said "I see many beautiful things in God's perfect world that are not perfect."  If one accepts the concept of God's world as being perfect I think it would be because it is God's world, not because all things in it are perfect.

I agree, Pilgrim's Progress, perfection, in this world, is not attainable.

Amazing photo of the lady on the steps MikeP!

She was, in that moment, in her intention and her being, perfect… and, as I said, beautiful. I think we ALL are capable of perfect (complete) moments and of heart-wrenching, inspiring beauty.

Few of us are very good at holding the moment and, if we're endlessly told  -- as advertisers love to tell us -- we're too ugly, too uninteresting, too fat, too thin, too old, too malformed, too... whatever... and we let it get to us, we find it hard to recognise those moments when we are truly perfect and truly beautiful. It can seem as though it is only others who are capable of perfection, or even that perfection is beyond us.

I don't remember a line in the Gospels  that might indicate requisite or even "desirable" height, waist, bust, hip, leg or limb measurements for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven; hell, I don't even recall anything about IQ or personality tests… so I tend to think we're called to be perfect (complete, whole) as and who we are and do our best to live love regardless of what others might see as deformities, handicaps or "issues". When we do that, we are suddenly, perhaps fleetingly, but definitely "perfect", and beautiful.

I agree , there is a certain beauty of knowledge and wisdom that reflects in the older generations hearts , something that is totally lost in todays world, they came from nothing, suffered atrocities but knew how to give and love 

There's no Like button anymore so I'll just QFT (Quote for Truth).

I will comment, though, that there do seem to be people who aren't happy unless they're tilting at the windmills of perfection, no matter how much you may try to convince them of what Pilgrim's Progress says. It seems like it's not the perfection that makes them happy (they know full well that they'll never get there), but knowing that they are at least trying to achieve it.

Mendalla

No doubt about it - you Kiwi's are good at bullshitting.

Mike, let me tell you something about us old gals -

The reason the woman smiled at you was because:

1.

It's the first time a man had smiled at her (who wasn't a relative) since she turned sixty.

2.

She'd made it up most of the steps - only a few more to go.

As has been pointed out the way many use perfection and imperfection reflects a static metaphysics - flawed viewpoint.  It assumes a original form which is to be copied.  The original form is thus seen as the perfect model which we seek to represent in other forms and thus the other forms that are created are  imperfect, unless the new form is without exception the same in all respects.   Thus everything is imperfect.

There is another metaphysical option where what is real is a process of relationships and thus what it is is perfect for the moment. What could be called imperfect is what is is only not the best it could be for the moment but can be better in the next moment and on and on.

Tomorrow evening there will be a book signing at the Crowne Plaza.  A well-known surgeon has written a book about 'The Imperfect Child'.   Much of it is about his childhood in this province.  He had turrettes syndrome, OCD, and ADHD.  His elementary school teacher ordered him out of the classroom; his doctor diagnosed him as retarded and recommended he be placed in special classes.

His parents saw something exceptional - a bright, energetic child who was 'different'.   They insisted that he be educated in the regular classroom.  They worked with him at home.  And they encouraged him to direct his hyperactivity towards physical exercise, as well as intellectual pursuits. 

Eventually, as an adult, he was properly diagnosed - but by then he had learned to manage his facial grimaces, his tics, his grunts, and he had learned how to put his compulsions and his energy to good use.   When he graduated from medical school his father took him back to his childhood doctor, and said:   "You remember my son -- the retarded one who couldn't be expected to learn anything - meet him now - Dr. ----"

Who is to say what or who is perfect?   Or imperfect?   We need the dreamers, the hyperactive ones, the creative souls, the freethinkers.   We need the 'less than perfect' to make up a perfect world full of variety and surprise. 

According to the latest cosmology, we are all here because of an imperfection in the ground of being that suddenly grew into everything.

Imperfection is beautiful.

CBC radio's "Beauty Will Save the World".

Is imperfection an infinite beauty waiting in the sidelines ... like the metaphysical form of the physical brae'n ... a notched impression on the human head that's entirely mistaken because they wouldn't be aware of psyche ... a particular mythical whoa man ... stopped dead in her trax ... reviewing creation?

Christ said it was figmental and passing as unproductive .. but who was actually moving ... the bits and pieces or the whole thing outside ... what Webster defined as relevant intellect? Is that Light humour or just bloody dark as the most demonly satyr ... Shadow side of God as Love?

Did you ever question de duck shin ... like raven in the Shadows? You never hear the end of eM craw'n about what a mortal doesn't know. Did you know that in the tradition of much of the middle east in Roman terms that there was no zero or infinite concepts ... the Romantic sorts thought they had it all in the bag ... but were miss taken by the other side ... myth of the beyond ...

Proving nothings perfect, who in their rite mind would chose a Roman Republic as an ideal axiom? Frankly I'd take the common folk ... they know the dirt that supports the upper tiers and as we saw under Louis regime ... how to bring down the nous ... with a good edge in Nos. how many people on the bottom tier of a pyramid scheme? Could such a thing eventually echo, or ego in madness of rapture ... having nothing like those Egyptian slaves ... who suddenly departed and leaving the North African Royalty ... sort of deep in chi-ite. Now in the technicalities of septic chemistry ... that le gassy creation could create a blast that could upend the world (fugal) and few would see it coming ... for they didn't wish to know! Is that stoop ID or what willies shat near? That's the Poe ... bare ... Guilli a team? The larger version would cut that piece out and take it hommoe ... true to form it's flo'n ... somewhat whet'd by the passing stroke of the stone? Sometime the experts take a real severe Rueben before they see anything ...

On the displacement of mind solo mon by solo psyche .. chi being on the reciprocal side by popular demand of men who didn't wish to know ...

How was chi lost ... easily, no one really cared to feed and cultivate her and look at the social mind now ...

From a file called the Une Dirting of the Charm, totem amulet, sacred thing heh:

(Like a millstone just hangs about the neck like a heavy thing ... that few know of the content, don't wish to know ...)

Burry’n of Psyche …

The whole lot beyond us as sole, singularity!

Form or tales believe

They should get everything from the other …

For nothing, whine, they brand the forehead …

Volunteer in prostitution …

Means of prostheses in primal act …

Prosthetics of nothing, for authority, a leg to pick at …

What they get in the end as holy, rapture?

 When the fabrication is RIP’ de Wahl Sea …

A flood of snakes and dragons …

Smooth as ilk …

They pas saes …

Leaving hardly a Shadow to learn from …

Thus Love is lost as Gods presence …

Displaced in a realm of primary hate …

Something, nothing passes through for the sensation of learning!

 For pure state of mind in brae’n as intuitive has no sensation …

Only induction as de deuce din par’s, conjugated bi silence!

Actions untouchable in a hateful world …

Unspeakable hoers, de mire of dirt, mar cure-IC …

Bloody lady of our own doing as we plo eon, senseless Li?

The rationale is beyond us …

We won’t go there!

As she produces children of emotion …

Deficient in thought, as de creed!

Sets the devil in disharmonious chives/chi vas …

As hei falls far from the trunk, senseless, stoop ID sole diere!

No moor war today in light of the sense less phoqah up …

Not knowing why, only that it had to be done as substitution Eris for the battle!

Now is that bloody aw sum in par a dice …

Two eyes open two closed in a dream …

Of passing spectres, ghosts of things to come in the eye of a butte …

Whole inte-act plugged?

Without need, line it with lams kin …

Light stuff NG …

That as prosthetic, for the leg to stand in …

With ivory foot print …

Walk softly when bare foot …

Teasing the god ESS antes …

Could come back at you as alien eKos …

Reflective image of something you couldn’t see in your’s elphe …

As awe ebit of devil in motion …

You couldn’t see without taking time …

To contemplate Cos effect and rationale!

That tome as Shelly wrought …

The creation of Gael or frank in Stein …

What Grumpy ole men call so sage around the Y ne’re …

An awakened psyche?

That’s the Ephraim in a man …

Sort of exo skeleton …

The structure beyond the man as naughty loose, nail’d Onyx’d …

As sole lost in reality …

Man blinded to the light of creative butté …

As is ne’re scene until going beyond the self, once gaon hei never returned to the old wahs!

No bullshit, Grim...

I have no idea why she smiled but I felt it was something to do with the perfection of the moment: the act and effort of going somewhere that may or may not turn out to be disappointing, the leaving at the bottom of the steps something that may or may not have been good, enjoyment of realising and enacting hope and intention: a perfect moment? Maybe. 

My personal experience (and I guess what prompted me to take the photo) would be that a strong feeling of perfection rises and is most readily experienced where hope, intention, action, trust and uncertainty intersect… sometimes everything at such times clicks together into a kind of harmony — it becomes compelling as a deep sense of completion, of wholeness and "right"ness. And it doesn't matter how the hope is finally realised: something is revealed, even if  things turn out very differently from what we'd had in mind. The perfect moment in the undertaken risk is somehow critical to accepting and embracing the outcome, whatever it may be. 

Like Pan says too, perfection is a dynamic, passing thing... but it does not all pass. There's an aftertaste, an echo-song, a memory and a sensation of inner change… encouragements to hope, to love, to trust... a dimunition of fear. This is why I see beauty as God's language of love and why I like to take photos of wildflowers and the like…

This lot all turned into wild strawberries (a good bit of the story's visible here: the buds, the blooms, the beginnings of fruit formation) and the ripe fruit sweet-fed little critters in the woods: perfect! (As I tried to explain above: "The perfect moment in the undertaken risk is somehow critical to accepting and embracing the outcome, whatever it may be..." It's happening all around us all the time; perfection's not THAT rare and unusual.)

Mike, that is a nice statement and photos on beauty - the moment of perfection - and yes that moment is carried further into more reflections of beauty in the moment- You state better what I was trying to say.

Lovely work, Mike. We are perfected in love.  I have experienced moments of that rightness and perfect-ness, and I am so glad for it, so grateful. Love the afterglow, the lingering memory, the hope of more...the seeking and longing and loving.

That's well-written, Mike - something I can easily relate to.

We experience the world in our own way, and I'm not a visual person.

For a photo, painting, scene,person to capture my attention it does so not by appearance or claims of beauty - but by how it captures my emotions. 

Thus, when I saw your photo of the old lady my mind's eye was captured by all those steps -and the fact that she had a walking aid.

Why?

Because we are affected by our past experiences - they shape our future to some extent.

In my case I was remembering how I broke my leg in my fifties - and how it took three operations and two years to walk without pain.

I knew what it would feel like to walk up all those steps, and the feeling of triumph that would bring an unbidden smile...........

Whenever I've been in an art gallery, surrounded by others, and all gazing upon the same painting - it's occurred to me that, although we are all looking at the same painting, we're all seeing a "different " painting, a painting we've "created" due to our own past and nature.

As for my other comment, I don't think I'm unusual, when looking through an old photo album and seeing myself in my thirties feel a wee bit sad about the passing of time.... 

My bullshit comment was from my own reaction - so it was unfair of me to accuse you.

You have convinced me that, from your perspective, God "talks" through visual beauty.

I should show my contrition by saying I hope the Kiwi's win the rugby world cup - but somehow I can't bring myself to go that far.

PP a nuance - beauty comes before emotion - we then respond in different ways due to many reasons... but there is more than our personal response - if that is all there is then there is nothing beyond the viewer - art dies, music dies, dance dies, love dies.   Yes point of view is important but it is in response to a whole history of beauty and how it has been seen... emotions and beauty are a both/and.

Perfectly imperfect, eh, Inanna?

We've moved to 11938 Lambert Drive, Coldstream. Look me up when you next come to this perfectly imperfect part of paradise.

Pan,

When you stated that "beauty comes before emotion" did you mean seeing comes before emotion?

All art is point of view, imho.

The artist has a point of view that creates the work - and it is seen by the observer from his/her point of view.

This even applies to photography. Why did the photographer choose that scene, that person?...............

In a sense all forms of art can die - if the artist dies his/her point of view dies with him/her.

If the art is no longer displayed - then no point of view can exist from the viewer's perspective.

BTW, I tend to avoid nuances when it comes to art - it can make your head hurt, and leave you going around it circles, like a dog chasing it's tail.

Speaking of perfection, Arm is back! With a new address no less.

Welcome back,

Mendalla

How to determine what is perfect or imperfect is one of life's big questions. In the dialogues of Plato, Socrates asked a man named Phaedrus a series of pointed question. One of them was:

"What is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good? And do we need anyone to tell us these things?"

To answer the second part of Socrates' question, I think everyone has to answer this and other existential questions for themselves. Although we benefit from the wisdom of others, everyone has to discover their own wellspring of wisdom.

As to the first part of the question, I think the striving for quality occurs automatically when we love what we're doing. If we love what we're doing, and do it a lot, and love its so much that we pursue it lovingly even if we get no recognition or pay for it, then we become qualitatively better and better and ever more perfect at it. Love is the engine that makes creation—any creation—perfect.

God so loved the world that IT created it more and more perfect. If we love the world with the same kind of love, then we, too, strive to make our part of the world more and more perfect—just by loving it and co-creating it with godly love.

PP =yes seeing comes before emotion, and more there is something in the art that speaks for itself and then to the viewer.  Of course the viewer brings something to the viewing, just as the artist does. The artist is responding to that which outside of the artist - beauty.  Then creates the artists point of view. But while it is a point of view there is a feeling outside the artist that the artist seeks to represent.  The point I am making is that some views of point of view makes it all the viewer or the artist and thus the objective is gone - it is called solipsism - the problem our world faces - which reduces the objective to personal view only-  there is beauty that we seek to represent through our point of view, and the beauty influences our point of view.

A while back, my goodness nearly three years ago, I made this video.  It kind of sums up my feelings about human beauty at least.  I don't believe in "imperfection".  I believe each of us is "perfect" as we are and as we will become....

Apologies for the quality, this was on of my early attempts and there are some wonky parts, but I think its quite nice in its imperfection nonetheless

Beauty is a light in the heart. Thanks LB perfect!!

If the heart of the soul wasn't flawed would the lightness show thro'? Isn't that a pain for those that are deluded by love as a grand feeling? It is fecund ... like chi-ite ... the fire will erupt somewhere else ... Eris in the other's side as dissonance ... a form of disturbance in the harmony so the Gods wouldn't get to complacent about what supports eM ... demos unusual sorts ... even odd at times ... alien?

Appreciate everything ... you never know when an ugly lady will nibble on your ear and you'll like ID ... perhaps even chew and arm off for Ur ... so chi'd be free to think!

Perhaps that specific point of view is God's - seeking to influence both the artist and the viewer?

In my class the other day, we did some "blindness" exercises--inspired by Augusto Boal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Boal

We had to do a variety of activities, facilitated by the teacher-- moving around the room with our eyes closed, relying on our other senses, and our imaginations, trust, and yielding ourselves to the process of the collective whole...learning the difference between relying on one's own wits, and having to trust that you will be okay relying on another's actions (or the actions of the group)--and sometimes just trusting that you will be okay not knowing where you are or where you're going or what you might bump into. It was fascinating...and noone got injured, but we took the risk for the experience. It's amazing what beauty can be "seen" and what can be learned by "seeing" in the dark. For me, the sound of "safety" was beautiful the closer I got to it (in this instance because my balance is not so good--so I was focused on the sound that my "guide" was making from across the room to lead me to safety--blocking out all the other sounds in the large room of 25 people). For others, perhaps the humour and the exhilaration of the new experience, for others the meditative and soothing experience of a world without "sight" but a with a vibe of trust (which I experienced after awhile too). Beauty is in the mind's eye of the beholder. 

Presence of soul; or is that just pre sense that we deny when borne of a sphere of passion ... enough to numb the isolated sole?

It is odd how that alien sense incarnates in the dirty fallout of heaven. Some X calve as hyn'd  required, Ur an awkward beast until cultivated ... relative of the Water buffalo ... Ur as auroch ... wild powers ... loupes of locis?

Can you see the Moe Bios "ich" man ... crippled without the assistance of the white behemoth ... blanca space to do a story writ as fabrication of mined? Compilation of a whole new whorled ... emotional stir? Makes c-Oz Moe's go round as there's no end tuit! But you have to know the word ... allah Baba ... the grand parental c-loose ... claws ... paws? Chi'll get you end the end ... and suck your brae'n zout!

Recall you're just a plant, a point in space, a point of mined?

From a file called Forth Calming, as Moasic Bluster Ova Chimera In B'ole (like bump in the Log?):

De Vale Eras (eamon) Plant in Space; Proto BlastIC Phun GUI …
And wicked twist of Ares, phood for Zoe’s anima …
That’s Harry, or how Henry VIII …
Found himself in catho lic’d para dice, entanglement Theo Sophy …
Two halves of the gamble over multiple court, spaces?
Sort of like divining bothe sides of the veil (in the san, or pas) …
Wahl Ka Raes, or fringe light; eĐ Œm’s just dah word…
Val karies tier, that in the Shadow …
That mankind, as they wish, can delude themselves of what they see …
Outside point of emote in, gravid Þons!
They just didn’t wish to know decorum of De Belle bi …
Feeling in dark an alien psyche, clap …
Ur outside being inside …
In reciprocal image of the hidden Jinn stone, spiritual difficulty?
Dimension that is always there as Circe …
De holi won’t go wah …
As there’s nothing to make of it …
Until you get right intuit …
And share somas delight!
Recall from the abstract Spectre, Babylon wat Urs …
Word’s hidden as heiros gamos …
Dark, Shadowy, ‘I Din thing in de Tθom, silencing heh …
If left ferme, that’s unopened, stiff, on end, ET’IC, Rueben soften!
Like mire thing not rolled over and faced He’Don …
Ass Anne end to the knight …
As revealed when David saw the Shadow …
Bathed in light, Chi-Ba as Ephraim in abstract, profile de veil …
Soled Eire departed as Aries on the drift …
Blood Ai laid-Ξ in the rapture, wolve Raes, wild light …
Took eM with UR across the wilderness …
Small dimension of not knowing devel era …
The developing storm of Celt, or çeL ði vision …
Denied by British Noble Ayres, Ai ‘s defunct, in singular creation!
Found to be far and large sort of stuffy …
So the prés ide ante released, eM for the shoot!
If you look at matter and anti-matter from both sides (pool Zars) …
What matters is not so critical when wandering …
Outside Çi Dae …
If chi is not in the light of knowing …
That’s possessing the hard cold facts that …
Eris moving in the opposite direction …
Searching alternate attention …
If you didn’t notice the imagination drifting elsewhere (dis connect?) …
When chi observed another hanging Luce (haman) in Oestrous space (West?) …
And disturbed by but-Tae of the surroundings …
That’s psyche in afar stretch for grasp, Shivas!
One should notice the abstract drift of whoa …
Mensa point of phoqaδ in absent dimension …
She wants the rapture plugged …
Like that deuce of Dutch Parse …
With finger in whet dead dyke …
Powerful woman following her’s ole …
In the cede in of salTae fecundity (magi dell in Eris, toe wench) …
Often times difficult to differentiate …
From a white washed stone cave, prepared for the dirt on the next generation of fools indi vessel; Eris in?

Some as' Sem bligh prerequisite; tightening up Luce Nz as they drift! Like a light flash of de Soul ... the spark that works, instant  vision of momen Tøom ... a heavy story of the dead to physical senses? That's the other absently knowing what chi's doing out there ... psyche ich/self ... bedeviling character on the move ... emote'n? The drawing of thoughts out the other end/opposite's ides as a bluster ... the isolated never liked a lot of word when being extracted ... thus casa blanca ... the not Zea'n soul! Crooked as Taurus on a page buoyd ... they'll never unravel the enigma ... for it alters on sight ... unless you know where you come from ...
 

Abs. ends of psyche ... mind les state of heaven ... divine Terre's Tory!

Yes and as well there is the reality of a metaphysical beauty.

'\" Beauty is in the mind's eye of the beholder. "   This is the basic philosophical issue - those who follow the idea of mechanism suggest this, but others suggest an aesthetic that is beyond the viewer. A relationship between the emotion and that which causes the emotion and how it is felt in the brain.   This phrase is the problem of modernism which has the world as only subjective-  which leads to ultra individualism.  It leads to radical relativism where you cannot even offer a critical remark from and aesthetic point of view, that there is something in the music the art that belongs to the art, and thus one can suggest it is poor art from an aesthetic value.

Beauty (visual, aural, dynamic, olfactory, gustatory, mathematical, spiritual, tactile, emotional, intellectual, social, natural, physical...) pre-exists its beholder — a sense of revelation accompanies perceptions of beauty — and beauty is continually being discovered where no-one has ever looked before.

It is possible to blind one's senses to beauty, to accept false definitions of beauty and to deny its significance. But beauty outlives the beholder and the works on the non-beholder. 

To not know beauty is to not know yourself. It is the tragedy of individualistic societies, (as Pan says)

AND

... it is the failing that will bring the "empire" down.

Is beauty always seen - observed with the eyes?

What of a beautiful memory, a friend with a beautiful spirit?

Beauty come through any or all of our senses, and in any combination of senses... of course, beautiful memories!!!! Of course beautiful friends and friendships.... I think we're pretty thoroughly immersed in beauty and, the more we experience it, the more of it we experience... 

Ah this thread is awakening my poetic memories....

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
[....]

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

      John Keats, A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
 

The entire poem is an ode to the beauty of memory and how we keep it alive.

This is one of my favourite poems particularly the opening.

Pan and Mike, What about something that is incredibly beautiful for one person (a geographical location or a piece of music for examples) but that is tied to a negative memory for another? I mean, one person's favourite vacation spot might represent a family breakdown, a piece of music might represent a divorce...although rationally, one can see or hear that they're beautiful, but the emotions interfere. 

Kimmio,

I'm guessing that Pan would say, as he did to me, that here is an aesthetic quality that exists beyond ourselves.........

I'm not convinced of that - but I do think that God is always at work to suggest both beauty and love to us.

Sometimes we avail ourselves of the opportunity - sometimes not. (and often because of an emotional memory.)

Not to worry,  when it comes to beauty and love, God provides us with infinite opportunities to experience both........

Through the lens of Psyche is that in the eyes of the beholder as mind is beyond a mortal that just does not believe in Complex or Imaginary Nos. ... eM, the paradigm, demos unusual thing to authorities that wish the lower tier would go away ...

Thus the off shoot of a beautiful mind like de Muse of Moses as we know eM ... a whole nuther population type ... beyond mortal as Webster definition? Walk barefoot Moses ... the foundation stone is white and fragile ... and you might fall through ID ... the uncultivated psyche? Like Marie Leclare ... swampy ground until well-worked. Take it as you will bogs are cheep and pheshy smelling having a wealth of amino acid (as ID; never seen until goan as fugacity; metaphor of ole fey-art)! Then who knows of the fugacity of ethereal substance?

Simile for getting out there?

Mike will probably agree and here is a quick response - there is a quality in the music that touches us, and then memory will take that in ways that can reaffirm the quality, and the quality will touch us and bring bad  memories.  The point is we are touched by the beauty and we respond out of our histories, it is both.and.   The beauty never disappears because of bad memories, in fact I would suggest if there was not beauty in the experience we would not have a bad memory - while that may not be what we want we are touched and then remember.

There is in music a quality that informs us and we add memory to it..... listen to Bach - chants - they do something to our brain and thus to our memory, 

Okay. Interesting. I personally don't find repetitive chanting beautiful. It produces uncomfortable feelings for me. For some others, perhaps they find it beautiful. I might have creative visions or potential music or poetry in my imagination that others would not find beautiful. Usually there are cultural differences in what different people find beautiful as well. I'm not sure we can reach a universal consensus on what is beautiful here on earth. We're far from it anyway. It's all perception. If we reach a point where there's universal perception, perhaps this will change. But then, that denies free will and individualism.

Kimmio, perhaps the universal consensus could be that each of us sees, feels, hears or remembers our own beauty and that in of itself is beautiful.

I took this picture today, it takes my breath away, others may not feel that way....

but that doesn't make it less beautiful for me.

Wow! That is a stunning photo! And the bubble bee looks cute and cuddly (which is not how I usually think of them)!

Ah, if I can convert one person to see the beauty of the humble little bee I am content

And in keeping with the thread, it was not a perfect shot yet still manages to be beautiful.

LB

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While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.

      Dorothea Lange