You should expect way too many pictures like this one, although I suspect that's not really a bad thing. At the Dolphin Bay Resort there is a long dock that stretches out into the Indian Ocean, which is probably quite busy during the high season. Fortunately for me, as it was the low season it was lovely and deserted. In the late afternoon, when the flies became too annoyingly persistent, I would grab my Kindle and make my way out to the end of the dock to read. The gentle winds provided a cool respite from the heat as well as keeping the flies at bay. Inevitably I ended up staying until the sun went down, and I'm sure I snapped over a hundred shots of the sun going down and fishermen gliding back and forth on the waves. Beyond enjoying the beauty of the place, however, it also made me think about the impact of beauty. In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche reminds us that, "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you." I know that my philospher friends Kite and Capone will roll their eyes at the mention of Nietzsche (of course, they also roll their eyes at Marcus Aurelius so, really, can they be trusted?) but I do think there is an important point here that is lost when Nietzsche is popularized (and trivialized). Now, having said that, does it also work the other way? That is, when you gaze into beauty does beauty also gaze into you? So, when I came back from Zanzibar was I actually a better person, not because I was relaxed, but because I came into contact with beauty and let it wash over me? If that is true then it's not really necessary to head off to Zanzibar (although I am much in favor of it), but instead to pursue beauty actively in your everyday life. Sometimes when I come back from the Middle East I will download a program onto my computer that automatically plays the Islamic call to prayer five times a day. It's not that I take time to pray, per se, but rather as a reminder to take a break from the trivial grind of day to day life and focus on something more transcendent. Maybe if we all took more opportunities to gaze into the beautiful, no matter how you define it, we would in turn be more beautiful. Any student who has ever suffered through a class with me has heard me repeat Rumi's admonition to "judge a moth by the beauty of its candle"; that is, judge a society (or person, for that matter) by what it holds beautiful. Now, does it matter what they hold as beautiful or just that they hold something as beautiful? I am enough of a snob to think that it would be much better if the definition of beauty focused on something transcendent or spiritual as compared to something that can be surgically augmented. No matter how one defines it, I think that Zanzibar did me a world of good. Or, to paraphrase Scrooge's nephew on Christmas, "I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
No comments:
Post a Comment