Truth? Beauty? Fit the More Serious aka Fit the Final

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 23827 – 1266

Well, Dear Readers,

I made it all the way through the A-Z challenge this year and, at this moment, I feel like I have enough steam to at least provide you with another brief series of reruns.

Here’s the haps:

(I explained a bit about where this thought came from in the first fit.)

The poet John Keats once wrote (in his poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”),
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

By contrast, Plato (in The Republic) warns of poetry’s power to make a falsehood seem true, by beautifying it. What, then, is the relationship between beauty, as achieved by the artist, and truth?

But there are other great minds that have spoken about beauty. One of these is Edgar Allan Poe, who said that,

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”

Edgar Allan Poe

The sentiment is beautiful in itself, but it is even better when coupled with another quote from him about beauty, which I think is really profound:

“There is no exquisite beauty…without some strangeness in the proportion.”

Edgar Allan Poe

To me, this speaks the truth that everything in nature is unique and individual. Nothing, no one, no body, no face, is exactly symmetrical and proportionate. Every person, every animal, and every plant. The blood vessels in your eye, your fingerprint, the sound of your voice, and of course, your DNA, are different from anyone else. You, dear, gentle reader, are the only one like you. The real truth is that you were created by the Almighty for a purpose that only you, as an incredibly unique individual, can perform. Someone else may be able to fill in for you if you won’t do it, but there is nobody like you.

In other words, YOU are a distinct, unique, beautiful individual. Like everybody else.