I was reading a book last night, To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller. Miller is a tremendous author and easily one of my favorites. But after reading a chapter in this book, I had a rather simple thought that I just couldn't get out of my head...
I'm tired of living in the cold, hard world of science and technology. I want to live my life in the poetic. To be caught up and enveloped in its warmth. To be awestruck at the beauty of that which is immeasurable and unquantifiable.
There is no accurate method of measuring what our souls experience in the joys, sorrows, stresses, anguishes, and loves in our lives. Science can't touch what our souls know to be true.
Life isn't in the controls and variables. Life is in the immeasurable experiences and relationships that we either can't avoid or wouldn't dare ignore. That's where the poetic happens. That's where the beauty is.
Life is in the poetic...
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Daily Ditty:
Van Morrison - Warm Love
5 comments:
Quite a beautiful piece of writing here.
Joe, you shouldn't make the mistake (as so many have done) of thinking that science by necessity removes the poetic from the world. Beauty and poetry lie in everything, and understanding more about things (which is the aim of science) in no way diminishes their beauty.
You'll remember my post Clipping the Angel's Wings back in January. Keats was grasping for the same thing you're expressing when he spoke about 'Unweaving the rainbow...' but truly, he had the stick by the wrong end.
The mysteries of the universe are astonishing. We will probably only ever understand a fraction of them. But the act of being inquisitive about them, the act of science is one of the most poetic and buoyant things that humans can do.
Don't view the world of science as 'cold' and 'hard'. They are words pushed on you by those who don't spend any time to properly thinking about the world.
I consider myself a scientist at heart. But in my almost fifty years on this planet that has in no way affected my sense of wonder, nor interfered with appreciation for love and beauty. Well, I say 'has in no way affected' when what I should properly say is that in fact it has increased it.
Science and math are poetry, and are filled with beauty that is both immeasureable and unquantifiable. The very point of science and math is to describe what our souls know to be true.
Beautifully said.....life to the full is never measurable; it's in the living and loving. Never be afraid to take the risks life confronts you with, and to take the risk of loving another deeply and purely.
Anne & Anaglyph - This wasn't meant to be an attack on science. The truth is that there is a certain beauty that in a flower after understanding its intricacies. Yet, I find that a number of things in my life can't be explained by modern science. Like the empathetic pains I have when a friend isn't doing well...
These moments in life are in a realm nearly isolated from science. And I love them.
That's what I was trying to say.
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