how often are you struck by how beautiful the world is?

[dolf]

this morning, driving to work, the sky was... well, that's not what the thread is about. i could ramble on for line after line about how breathtakingly beautiful this morning was. you know when you see something and you just wish there was someone else there, someone who would see what you saw and feel the same joy? but, thinking about it, i suspect i feel that way several times a week. i'm a lucky bugger really!

so when was the last time you felt that way?
do you ever just stop and look and feel that feeling?

 

[Adre]

Kodak moments, before the digital age. Yes, I take photos with my eyeballs fairly often. These days my decrepit filing system can hold only so many images, so I try to lose one whenever I have to put a new one in.

 

[Recidiva]

For me, it's often.

I come at it backward, not a sense of normal life and then transcendent life.

I've spent so much time in awful pain that not being in awful pain is transcendent.

I was having a conversation with my daughter yesterday, she's trying to fast to get an appreciation of real hunger. That's more my sort of practice. If you think life is boring or awful, start taking away things that you take for granted until you appreciate them. Be thirsty. Be hungry. Be sick. Be in pain. Be cold. Be uncomfortable in all the bejillion ways it's possible.

Every day I appreciate hot water. I appreciate my brain not shrieking at me. I appreciate being able to get something out of the refrigerator. I appreciate computers and the view out my back porch, looking at roses bloom and hibiscus open and close.

 

[dolf]

i do see your point, reci, but my entire childhood was filled with miserable, painful, starving, traumatic oppression. i figure i've had my fill of not having. i appreciate a whole heap of stuff! no need to deny myself to see it.

 

[ChinaBandit]

This thread needs a string section.

 

[Recidiva]

i do see your point, reci, but my entire childhood was filled with miserable, painful, starving, traumatic oppression. i figure i've had my fill of not having. i appreciate a whole heap of stuff! no need to deny myself to see it.

Oh, definitely. Once you've learned that lesson, no need to repeat it.

Mountains are amazing and the heavens are full of awe and flowers are full of color and symmetry...I find majesty also in refrigeration, antibiotics and books.

I like the small reminders in all the ways they manifest themselves.

I might be easily impressed, but I also get headaches often enough to just find that drawing a breath without pain is miraculous.

 

[dolf]

This thread needs a string section.

it's hard to type with a violin in your hand, but somehow i struggled through.

 

[dolf]

central heating *sigh*

but i was kinda thinking more along the lines of 'majesty of nature' & shit.

 

[theault_b]

All the time. Most of the time. I see snaps of time like that constantly. Then the phone rattles or the neighbor squeals or the car before me does something outlandishly dangerous or some distraction manages to distract. I get the under water thing - that solitude of blocking all out but the here now - until somehow it's ripped away and that gasp for breath...

I walked this morning to the mail box - long before the sun rise - long after most all had put well down. It was almost-still and cool. Puff balls of clouds peppered an almost clear early early sky. Stars. Moon. Glow. Near quiet. I was overwhelmed by a contentment with just the this. For precious aeons I lost touch with where or when or what I was doing and just sucked it in.

Really, my days are filled with moments like this - most just fragmentary; held together by these seemingly oppressive tendrils of responsibility and obligation and unwarranted stress. The way a clock ticks can be seen both ways. Rain on a window pane... an aria...

The world is mostly beautiful... mostly. It's context that mucks it up.

Most probably this isn't the place...

 

[Adre]

it's hard to type with a violin in your hand, but somehow i struggled through.

The Internet encourages one-handed typing.

 

[Recidiva]

central heating *sigh*

but i was kinda thinking more along the lines of 'majesty of nature' & shit.

My parents taught me that. Every vacation was camping and hiking and viewing the majesty of nature.

It also taught me why central heating, air conditioning, freedom from bugs and small rocks in the back while sleeping are also worth appreciating. I honor my ancestors for their efforts to get away from the natural course of things.

 

[dolf]

All the time. Most of the time. I see snaps of time like that constantly. Then the phone rattles or the neighbor squeals or the car before me does something outlandishly dangerous or some distraction manages to distract. I get the under water thing - that solitude of blocking all out but the here now - until somehow it's ripped away and that gasp for breath...

I walked this morning to the mail box - long before the sun rise - long after most all had put well down. It was almost-still and cool. Puff balls of clouds peppered an almost clear early early sky. Stars. Moon. Glow. Near quiet. I was overwhelmed by a contentment with just the this. For precious aeons I lost touch with where or when or what I was doing and just sucked it in.

Really, my days are filled with moments like this - most just fragmentary; held together by these seemingly oppressive tendrils of responsibility and obligation and unwarranted stress. The way a clock ticks can be seen both ways. Rain on a window pane... an aria...

The world is mostly beautiful... mostly. It's context that mucks it up.

Most probably this isn't the place...

this post makes me smile.
big smile. real smile.

it makes me wish you were there to see this morning.

 

[ChinaBandit]

central heating *sigh*

I was thinking of central casting.

Who could possibly play the roles of dolf and Reci in this production so full of metaphor?

 

[dolf]

I was thinking of central casting.

Who could possibly play the roles of dolf and Reci in this production so full of metaphor?

i want to be played by someone significantly less intelligent and more beautiful. i'm a traditionalist that way.

 

[theault_b]

this post makes me smile.
big smile. real smile.

it makes me wish you were there to see this morning.

Your question - your morning - struck a chord. Thanks... that's a real Thanks and a real smile... you brought me there to see your morning. That's a treat.

 

[Soulen]

Mimicry

i'm looking around to see if i am the only one. i'm looking around to make sure someone else can verify. vouch for it. tell the world about it. but there is nobody. i am alone and i am a lone witness.

so, okay it's kind of shocking, a little bit scary. realizing that there isn't anyone else to see it, to behold it. later on, when i tell this story to everybody that i know, there won't be another witness. someone to attest. someone to prove i didn't imagine the whole thing. the people that hear the story will hold their hands/arms straight out in front of them. asking me was the fish this big, or this big? they'll laugh and snort. throw their heads back in laughter. a couple of them may even chortle, just because chortle is a funny word.

fuck them, i don't need witnesses. i saw it myself. the experience was all mine. all mine forever. you can't take that from me, nobody can. ok, so i will derive strength and satisfaction from the sighting. from what i saw.

do you want to know what i saw? what it is that i witnessed? it was a realization. a sharp, tangy realization. silver-lined and lackadaisical. just hanging there like it didn't have anywhere at all to be. like it wasn't the key. like it had not a care in the whole world. the whole, silver-lined fucking world.

sometimes this is what a moment can be. sometimes you can witness it and it can become a thing, a real thing. full of beauty and so, so many prospects. sometimes you can look at something amazing and feel the world fall away all around you. sometimes you stumble across a realization that is so immense, so intense that it expands beyond your imagination. it takes over all your other senses, just for a moment. a blip, a mere nano second.

sometimes there is true profoundness in a single moment. and sometimes the intensity of that moment is all we'll ever really need.

 

[blobfish]

Sometimes. But sometimes I find people all the more beautiful. Humanity, the species that I least admire, can at times produce such beauties as to pierce the fabric of my existence. I once believed that eyes were a window to the soul, but I have since learned how deeply untrue that statement really is. There are some souls that are so unwieldy beautiful that they make the eyes seem like baubles in comparison.

 

[InternationalFunboy]

All the time really. I'll always stop to watch a pretty sunset or to literally smell the flowers. Every summer I take a week or two out in Colorado and quite literally get lost in the mountains. It's hard not to feel awe there.

Dig this, a friend took this just recently:

 

[InternationalFunboy]

My dad took this with his phone yesterday...

 

[InternationalFunboy]

Me, Ben, Wheaties, Jenny

 

[blobfish]

Me, Ben, Wheaties, Jenny

Which one is the dog?

 

[Recidiva]

The view from Glacier Point...well, in one direction, anyway.

 

[Saint Peter]

Great pics, IFB.

Next time get a better shot of Jenny's ass.

Thanks.

 

[InternationalFunboy]

Which one is the dog?

The skinny black one is my dog Caesar. The little one behind Ben is Walter.

 

[blobfish]

The skinny black one is my dog Caesar. The little one behind Ben is Walter.

Ha, I love the name "Walter" for a dog! It's funny when dogs have people names.