I’ve always thought as an atheist that many Christians don’t really believe the Christian story is true — or, at least, it isn’t very important to them whether it’s true. For whatever reason, it’s such a beautiful story that they’d prefer to be true that its actual truth doesn’t matter.
I’ve been wondering, lately, if there are any tendencies or beliefs that I have that are like that. And there is, possibly, one that I can think of at the top of my head. As a secular humanist, I really believe this, even though I don’t have enough evidence that it’s completely true, and although many people (other atheists included) disagree with me. It feels really good to believe it, it makes my life colorful and worth living, and so I hold on to it.
My irrational belief is that every corner of the world is beautiful somehow. For about as long as I can remember, I’ve had this nearly unshakeable tendency to think that there’s an angle you can look at something from that makes it beautifully fascinating. This isn’t to say there are things I don’t think are harmful — I certainly do. But I think that things are harmful with a kind of inner suspicion/conviction that it’s possible for even the most harmful parts of life to be seen as beautiful in someone else’s story.
It’s controversial to look at things that way — sometimes you feel as if you simultaneously agree and disagree with almost everyone at the same time. And the difficult thing is that you have to choose which path of beauty you decide to walk on, and that requires rejecting others and choosing a set of blinders, to an extent.
But I somehow just know that, regardless, it’s gotta be a wonderful world. Coldly beautiful, cruelly beautiful, and ugly from some angles (many of which I choose to fight from)…but somehow, I tend to think that even the ugliest bits hold the potential to be beautiful, from some vantage point, to somebody.
If I have an irrational faith in something these days, maybe that’s it. Because it might not be true. Some things may be dark and ugly and have absolutely no shred of beauty to them, at all, period, zero. Most people certainly seem to think so.
And yet…it’s like I have this overwhelming urge and tendency to see the world differently, to assume that even the darkest corners are beautiful in their way. Honestly, maybe it’s because a truly ugly world would hurt too much to live in, or something. Or maybe it’s because all the places I thought were only evil were complicated by a beauty someone saw in them if you saw it from a different perspective, and this beauty has surprised me even when it coexists with horror. Probably it’s some combination of both these things.
In my fantasy-world, I tend to think that maybe, if we saw the beauty in each other’s perspectives, all the barriers would come down and we’d just live in a beautiful world somehow. Weird, huh? I know it’s irrational. I know I have no reasonable right to think this. And yet…I can’t shake this instinctual, calm resonance with some transcendent, peaceful beauty under the roughly cruel forces of existence…
Maybe I’m right. Or maybe I’m wrong, and it’s just easier to live in a world I can love…
It’s like this scene, maybe. Some people look at it and say, “it’s just a plastic bag.”
And others see so much beauty in it that it’s almost too much, sometimes, and it makes life more than worth living.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVuq7L9IEr8[/youtube]
I guess I’m in the latter group. And sometimes I wonder if that’s a flaw, honestly.
But more often, I see it as giving me a reason to live and love, and figure that’s OK. Can’t think of a reason indulging in the possibility/fantasy really hurts anyone, so much as it encourages understanding…
What do you think?