Thursday, April 10, 2008

Recognition of Beauty and Living in the Present

A quick thought about Christopher's post on beauty and the story about children wanting to hear the violinist. I think in order to appreciate beauty one has to be truly present to the present moment. Adults, with life experiences and responsibilities that transcend the time and space of the moment, have a tendency to live life thinking about either the past or the future rather than being truly present. But kids, without these extensive experiences and responsibilities, seem really good at living life in the present moment. Even when they have no attention span and are easily distracted (think of kids fidgeting at mass), notice that they get distracted by something right then and there in that present moment. So while adults and children may share time and space of a given moment, how they experience and live in that moment in relationship to time is completely different. Therefore, because children experience the present moment with greater attention, it would make more sense for them to notice and be affected more by beauty. Attentiveness to the present moment, one of thousands that we can learn from children.

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