December 22, 2023

People hearing from me again, repeating the story, going through it again and again, refining, recategorizing, achieving a conceptual framework more nuanced, finding more traction with reality, learning how to share a reality with other people and God.

The pattern that makes all other patterns possible — the pervasive vertical pattern, like embroidery, making a brooch. We have to make the words 'embroidery' and 'brooch' cool again; then, we know that we have a society that is healthier than the one we have now. We need to make ice-cream trucks bad again; then, we know that we have a society that is not aesthetically retarded, or less aesthetically retarded than the one we have now. We need to objectively face the word 'retarded'; then, we know that we are less egocentric than we were before.

It turns out that aesthetics is quite fundamental. How do we engage in the dialectic between our senses and our minds to create an image of ourselves, others, and reality? Am I practiced in doing that? Am I more aware that I am doing that? Can some of this complex and dynamic process, more of it, be cathexized, made to appear before my consciousness, so that my brain knows where to put it, what to do with it? And then can I begin to evaluate better? Aesthetics underlies valuation. If you have a lot of money, how will you know how to spend it? On the things that make you, others, and God truly happy?

Become a better version of yourself, grow, and then find the mind-blowing satisfaction of contemplating this painting.