When art conforms to our ideals of beauty, we call it beautiful. We go beyond our present categories when we ask, ‘can anything beautiful exist beyond my ideas about beauty?’ I answer, YES!
Art throughout history shows immense variance and delightfully proves at least some people dared to go beyond what they learned. Countless attempts at innovation undoubtedly failed. Regardless, once a new form took hold, borne through the innovators bold enough to risk, the form and beauty passed on to future generations through inheritance. If our bold benefactors never dared to step off the worn paths, progress could not have happened. The same intrepid spirit invigorates all social change, philosophy and science.
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Let’s ask the same question about love.
‘Can love exist beyond our ideas about love?’
There is no reason to think human affections as we now know them exist at the summit of possibility. If we view the huge gaps in our understanding as a chance for a wonderful discovery, then holding tight to what we learned about love becomes an unreasonable limit. But those who think innovation reckless should ponder how their own relationships are not imprisoned in customs our culture abandoned for better decades and centuries ago. Let’s acknowledge the ancestors who dared to go beyond their tradition leaving us benefits without the perils they faced! Let’s not only tolerate but encourage our contemporaries who do the same today.
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Image: Wikimedia Commons
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