Who Needs Beauty?

I recently wrote the following thoughts in a letter regarding the proposed large-scale abstraction of water from the River Shannon:

". . . To gut a picturesque river is to take something from the heart of the people, to demoralize them -- even if unintentionally.  That, in turn, can have a profound effect on family life and economics."

Is beauty a small thing?

I have found, through the rigors and deprivations imposed by chemical sensitivity, that the loss of beauty in one's surroundings can, itself, be debilitating.  Others have lost beauty in their surroundings as a result of poverty, natural disasters, war, and other illnesses and injuries.  Whichever way it occurs, the loss of beauty brings on visual gloom.  Life goes spare and bare.  You can tell yourself a million times a day that mere visuals shouldn't get under your skin this way, that this or that task must get done no matter what -- but how do you honestly feel while doing it?  Do you feel cast down, thoroughly engulfed by a sense of visual "greyness" or hopelessness, and drained?

Or consider, for example, an old section of your hometown that you used to love as a child, perhaps once filled with abundant grass, flowing river, and thriving trees.  Imagine that a slime-filled reservoir or dried-up riverbed now disfigures that lost haven of sweetness . . . . .

How would it feel to look at that, remembering the lushness of creation that once existed so peacefully there under the skies?

Speaking for myself, such a sight would make (and has made) me queasy in the depths.  Something would forever after feel very wrong, out of joint, and exceedingly dismal -- were that my hometown.  (And, in fact, my hometown has changed in some sad ways.)  If I were forced by circumstance to remain living there, something in my life would be irrevocably altered.  I would find myself battling a reflexive sinking of the spirit at every turn, plus a grim sensation of things slipping away in a more dramatic, global, and rapid fashion than they would have at the steadier pace of nature alone.

When we invade the peaceful workings of nature in extensive, sudden, and perhaps unnecessary ways, we disrupt time -- our own time.  We put ourselves on a new clock.  We then find ourselves racing against this man-driven clock, accelerating our own demise.  Man's clock is erratic and unpredictable, subject to whims and appetites, supply and demand, greed and need, and money.

The more spiritually aggressive drives of man often dispense with beauty and the purity of nature as though they were of no consequence beside the things that "really" matter.  They dispense with the purity of nature because they already do not mind infiltrating their fellow man with innumerable toxins and pollutants.  Humans have become acceptable reservoirs for mass-produced and mass-distributed toxins.

Beauty?  Who has time for beauty?  Only artists and dreamers? 

Perhaps.  But if they didn't bother to preserve beauty, each in his own way, humanity would go mad.

It's very difficult to earn a living when one must white-knuckle one's way through a persistent sense of futility and decay.  It's very difficult to inspire one's family in spiritually uplifting and creative ways when one's physical surroundings appear increasingly devastated.

The destruction of beauty takes a more severe toll on us than we might imagine. 

Far from being a frivolous concern, beauty is one of our basic human needs.  It helps kindle that fire deep down in our souls that will fuel us during long nights and tough times.  It hones our sensibilities in periods of desperation and need, reminding us of the human charity which must always come first.  It puts our minds on a higher plane of awareness and sensitivity; so that, when a practical solution is called for, our concerns will already be at that higher level and we will be much more likely to handle our resources with care.

Who needs beauty?

We all do.

Wishing you havens of loveliness --

Cheers!

~ Carolyn