Beauty is everywhere around us, when our eyes are open to see it

By David McElroy · October 26, 2012

When I was eating dinner Thursday night at Chick-fil-A, I looked out the window next to my booth and saw a colorful, dramatic sky as the sun set. I pulled out my iPhone and snapped a few pictures, including the one you see above.

But I noticed something. Other people didn’t seem to be paying attention to the spectacular light show going on in the sky outside. I stepped outside for a few pictures. People continued to come and go, not bothering to look up at the sky. A couple of people noticed that I was taking pictures and looked up to see what I was shooting. But it didn’t seem to warrant more than a quick glance in their eyes.

Once I had the picture transferred to my MacBook, I showed it to some other people around me. They all thought it was beautiful.

“Wow. I’ve never seen anything like that,” said one woman, as the fading remnants of that exact scene lingered in the sky outside the window.

I was reminded of the scene early in Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” in which Clarisse McClellan pointed out the moon to the disillusioned Guy Montag.

“And if you look” — she nodded at the sky — “there’s a man in the moon.”

When she later told Montag how she knew there was something different about him, she mentioned that it was because when she mentioned things such as the moon and other oddities that she noticed — and which he hadn’t noticed — Montag actually looked.

We live in a world where everyone is busy with plans and programs and schedules. We’re going places quickly. We’re getting things done, I suppose. But I’m not sure we’re living. I’m not sure we’re paying attention to the beauty and wonder that are so much a part of making life worthwhile.

There’s beauty all around you. It might be in the sky. It might be in the leaves under your feet. (The shot below was near my house earlier this week.) Life is beautiful if you’re looking for it. There’s a lot that’s ugly and painful and mean, but there’s a lot of beauty if you open your eyes.

I don’t know exactly what the beauty is in your world, but I guarantee it’s there. Somewhere. Open your eyes and look. Take pictures of it. Share what you see with other people. You might find it makes life a little bit more worth living.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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