Didn't want to study anymore so I wrote some shit. Discuss it.
In order for us, as a species, to survive, we need to figure out how to embrace each other as brothers and sisters and stop getting into pissing contests. Life is too short to spend it killing each other. On a more personal level, we need to stop being so angry, stop taking advantage of each other, stop being cruel. There is no time for that. We need to love. Love is the key to success in life. Love is your ability to take all the beauty around you, absorb it, use it, add to it, and then send it back into the world. But what is beauty? Beauty is positivity, creativity, hope. Trees are beautiful because they sustain and encourage growth, books are beautiful because of the effort put into writing them, a smile is beautiful because it comforts and spreads happiness. War is not beautiful, but imagine an Israeli soldier gets hit by shrapnel and is injured, unable to move and help himself. A Palestinian citizen leaves the safety of her home to bring him inside and tend to him, this is beautiful. This act instills hope, reminding people that tomorrow can be a better day, if we make it so.
If there is beauty, it must have an opposite, like hate is for love. So what is its opposite? Ugliness, but now there is an important distinction that we need to make. Is ugliness a concealer of beauty, or is it the absence of it? If ugliness is concealing beauty, that means that ugly events have some beauty in them, and it is our job to uncover them and appreciate what can be born from ugliness. However, if ugliness is the absence of beauty, then what is there to do? If this is true, there is nothing redeemable about any ugly act. Take the holocaust- certainly an ugly act. Now, is there some hidden beauty (something good that came of it?) or was it just pure ugliness? And if it was pure ugliness, then there are in fact evil acts. Evil acts can be defined as malicious actions perpetrated by knowledgeable parties. By knowledgeable we mean that these persons knowingly hurt other people with the intent of solely benefitting themselves or their accomplices. An ignorant act is not an evil act because the perpetrator was not malicious in his intent. Evil acts and evil people have no place in this world. The enron scandal was an evil act, as was the holocaust, as is rape. Not all war is evil though, especially when an oppressed people are fighting for freedom. So if ugliness is the absence of beauty, can beauty still emerge? Yes, but not the same as if it was concealed, instead of being uncovered it will have to be born, in spite of the ugliness. This takes considerably more effort.
Edited by DonValentino, 10 November 2014 - 08:36 PM.