Time Out: Let’s Look For a Moment at the Beautiful and Terrible World Around Us
Time Out: Let’s Look For a Moment at the Beautiful and Terrible World Around Us
Brandon Dean
WizardofOswald.com
May 25th, 2009
“you’re not gonna know yourself
until your back’s against the wall…
if it’s not the ratchet
it’s the gun
and if it’s not the gun
it’s the bomb
and if it’s not the bomb
it’s poison flour…
every hour on the hour
you hear the people buy
them buy, them buy, them buy
poison flour
killing off man…”
–Dr. Alimentado
For some of us, the war for truth can take a psychological toll. It always helps me to step back at these moments, to observe the universe around me. What is missing in these moments is my balance between the seeming chaos and utter violence of the universe, and the utter beauty and calm of the universe.
When you watch a sunset, the beauty is indescribable. Yet, if you were anywhere near the sun, you would be fried to a crisp, and the sun’s light is creating that beauty.
sunset in Lost Angeles
Sometimes we neglect to see the creation all around us. I find it ironic to note that, no matter what man builds, nature immediately begins to take over again. The struggle to build is essentially the struggle to control or curb nature. But you see how primitive man truly is compared to the design of nature by observing nature reclaiming its sovereignty over man’s accomplishments:
the fence in my backyard
“God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror; the thing we most need, and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies.“
–C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity
But creation exists nonetheless, from both God’s and Man’s perspectives. God continues to destroy and create, and Man continues to attempt to emulate God, while mostly acting like apes. Reality is too chaotic to understand on either a microscopic or macroscopic level; only within our sliver sized frequency range do we perceive our universe. The rest is far too complicated. So we observe our universe and try to emulate the creation and destruction we see every day. The destruction is evinced through war and conflict, while the creation is evinced through art and technology. War and conflict have fomented technology and even art at times in history, while art and technology have, at times, fomented war and conflict.
artwork by Brandon Dean
“I was in the country, and the fences were falling over, for miles. And no one knew where I was in that beautiful wasteland. I could have blown off the side of the globe and what would it have mattered? Who would have noticed? My memory does not rely on the landscape, nor the fog rolling off the mountaintops, nor the hawks floating on the wind. It relies on the awe I felt, the Blessed helplessness. Looking in the face of the unknown and enjoying the release of stability, open-eyed. Happiness.”
–Brandon Dean, from The Life and Tendencies of One Don Incognito
my orchid
“It’s a sad and beautiful world.
It’s a SAD and BEAUTIFUL world!”
–from the film Down By Law by Jim Jarmusch
copyright Brandon Dean 2009
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