On Beauty

On the saints of Silicon Valley.

Do you worship the market for your God? “Ah, ah, product-market-fit, ah, ah…”

Oh—and what if the market is wrong? “Oh!—but, by Golly, never thought of that…” Look at you!—preaching acronyms and running head-into-bottoms.

Well, here comes a thinker to save the day.

So, I propose we create a market of beauty.

I shall go first—I sell the image of a handsome, well-rounded man built in the image of God. His face, measured and proportionate, and his jawline a knife to cut through one thousand villainous souls.

“Cut, cut!—away with the demons, and into the abyss, do you go.”

And in him, lives the spirit of God—the dance, the jive, the graceful step. In his scorn, and in his arrogance, he is handsomer still—for the handsome man can do nothing repugnant. Does he make an ugly face?—ah, but look how even, how symmetric, how defiant!

Every rule, written to be re-written, and few with the courage to do so, but he!

And, do I like a Hegel—in idea? The dialectic, soul of “some” part of German spirit, root behind the success of Palantir? Well, never mind that Bach said it first, better, and immortal.

But, I dislike his portrait—Hegel’s—and it does not live up to my aesthetic standards. Thus, shall I never read the man.

He is ugly!—and what can he say worth knowing?

Oh, oh, too hot to handle!—these bold words of mine. Just to sprinkle a palmful of salt upon the Universe—for it lacks the seasoning that I crave, and I must make it palatable, or die hungry and dissatisfied.

There was a tradition came close, in Homer and the Greeks, with Ulysses being, in James Joyce’s words, the “only well-rounded man in literature” (paraphrasing).

Let me detour to say—I write words, and never put in links, or images, nor do I look things up, but merely draw upon memory, thought, and feeling. Because I am a handsome stud who cares not whether he is right or wrong, but whether he draws a painting reminiscent of a long-lost artistic ideal, forgotten and drowned in an ocean of despair.

Here, then, is the life-raft—and the Greeks knew not Christ, nor Heavenly introspection, nor the ideal of permanent sin in impermanent being. Place a man on a Cross, and man shall find he is no longer lost.

And Nietzsche—with a gorgeous profile—said by a straight man, artistically, ahem, and back to the point—is stylistic in his worst of ideas. Does he err?—oh, but it is Divine!—and does he fall into pits and traps?

Oh, noble spirit…

And you, San Francisco saint, are repulsive whether you make money—or not!—so, you may as well go ahead and try to make it. I shall watch from the sidelines, imbued with Divine grace, and study you—as the scientist does the insect.

Behold!—what has the same God created!

And once in a while, your work shall be Divine!—and I shall rejoice. But, if not, I retreat to my deep, dark, cavernous, introspective soul, where beauty reigns supreme, and where a stone once tossed, echos and rebounds for months and years, and dream of a world free from aesthetic sin.

I, one for beauty!