So, I guess I haven't updated my blog in a while. This probably has much to do with the fact that since I no longer need to be shoved into my room all day studying for the LSATS, I seemed to have found myself a life! The LSATS went well, hopefully I did better than the last two times, and improvement is always better than failure, but I have about another two weeks of waiting, so I have tried to push it out of my mind.
In the midst of trying to shut out the nagging feeling in my head, I got an email from my friend linking me to this page ... http://www.thebeckoningoflovely.com/
Along with it was a warning that this video may make a friend of ours cry. I was skeptical. I'm not usually highly emotional, especially towards 7 minute movies that do not encompass any wounded animals. I watched, and much to my surprise, I actually did find tears welling up in my eyes. The weird part was, that as I felt myself having this reaction, I was actually surprised it was happening. There wasn't actually sad in this video, nothing that would normally cause tears. So, in the end, I decided to pretty much ignore these feelings blaming hormones and move on with my life. However, I found myself thinking about this video throughout the day and by the time night came around I was back on the site watching video after video. I ended with the One Year Later: 09/09/09 video at around midnight and sat there reflecting on what I saw for a while.
I guess in the end I realized that subconsciously, this video had brought tears to my eyes because Amy had attempted to do something that very few of us ever go through the trouble of doing. We spend so much of our lives thinking only of ourselves, and the best most of us ever do is to think of the ones we love. Why is it so hard for us to reach out to strangers? And I don't mean strangers like those in the breast cancer foundation or the national autism foundation (although I am far from saying don't donate to these companies, just that I am currently speaking of something different.) I'm talking about going out of your way to do something nice for a person who is probably not too unlike yourself? A regular person, on their way back from work, worrying about what they're going to dinner, the chores they have to do and the papers they have piling up at work.
As a philosophy student, I have read and thought much about the place of beauty in the lives of humans. Though it may not be thought of much, beauty is truly a necessary aspect of our lives. It allows our souls to transcend the mundane and reach a form of happiness that would otherwise be impossible. Consider the simple example of being in a room with plain white walls, floor and ceiling. Now think of this same room with murals of the meadows and rainbows and birds soaring up high. In the end, its the same room, but the first can leave a person feeling anxious, nervous and pent up while the second has a calming, soothing and freeing sensation. This may not be something that a person consciously thinks about, yet it is something they will undoubtedly feel. So what does this have to do with The Beckoning of Lovely? Everything! What Amy accomplished is truly an instance of the beautiful. She pulled strangers out of their every day lives to come together to build something beautiful. For that moment, all those who came together had the opportunity to forget all their problems, and all the problems of the world and immerse themselves in beauty and happiness. They had the chance to spread this happiness to others.
It's true that it is a dreamer who lives this life every second of their life, but I think we have gotten so inundated with the day to day problems of our lives that we forget to, as the saying goes, "stop and smell the roses." We have forgotten what is really important about life. It is not just the numbers in our bank accounts but the beauty of the night sky, the splendor of a waterfall or even the beauty of the building we spend our days in. We have turned into zombies, and I think we should all take a page from Amy's book and spread the lovely.
