Beauty and Originality

by theschan4

I liked the reading about the concept of beauty. Beauty seems at first to be quite simple, but the more one thinks about it, becomes increasingly hard to define.

The author’s idea of extracting the concept of beauty by addressing the idea of music is something that I can relate to, being a musician. While I generally tend to think of beauty as being generally aesthetically pleasing, beauty is much more than that. For instance, there exists a vast range of music that strikes the listener as beautiful; so then what is beauty? The author mentions that beauty is recognized when our being resonates with whatever it is at the moment, it could be a sound, a thought, an action,or a feeling.  

I also find there to be contrasting pressures for young artists. I can relate as I tried to compose some music once, that I felt compelled to either produce a composition that was “accessible” (what I thought other people would like), or to try to be so “different” from the past that I knew for myself that I was trying too hard. In this vein, there were a few closing thoughts I particularly liked: “Originality doesn’t mean being unlike the past or unlike the present, it means simply acting from your own being.” and “There is no need to alter your voice to please others.”