Ariadne, Dionysus, and the Beauty of all Things
Sometimes it is necessary to let go in order to hold on
Philosophy is not intended to be about beauty. Beauty, in an ideal world, ought to be a consequence of philosophy. A necessary precondition for beauty is ugliness, and insofar as this is true, philosophy ought to be ugly in order to promote beauty. However, philosophy in the West has become corrupted by systems and stolid, hollow, and sickly nihilism. Philosophy ought to be about life.
We have created a system like that of Plato’s cave, except in this case we are aware of it.
We prefer the shadow of things than the reality. Television, for instance, offers us the ability to experience emotion vicariously through characters without having to experience the actual danger or fear those characters experience. On some level, we are holding on too tightly to something. To say that it is purely a fear of death would be an oversimplification. It may be something more akin to a fear of life. We have invented for ourselves innumerable ways, through the miracles of technology, to indulge our fear of life.
But the clock is ticking, and we all know it. We live with the expectation of a tomorrow. What if there were no tomorrow? Would it all be worthless then? Do we need to measure ourselves based on what we have accomplished up to this point? Maybe it would make more sense to measure our lives based on the love we have given and received, the smiles we have witnessed, the laughter, the warmth of others, and the moments of wonder and astonishment that have reminded us of the miraculous nature of all existence.
What, in the end, ends up becoming lost due to fear? What would you, on your deathbed, have rather said to someone than not have said it? Dionysus is significant because he represents a shattering of this barrier. Dionysus is the god of wine, dance, and madness, travelling from town to town, allowing people to let go of themselves. And who is Ariadne? She wove the thread so that Theseus would be able to find his way out of the labyrinth after defeating the minotaur. Both are necessary. To become mad and to be able to follow that thread back to sanity. Doesn’t everyone envy the mad at some point or another, as long as they could only be mad for a day, and then return to themselves? Maybe just to see how it feels…
I am wary of writing a philosophy of beauty. Life is beautiful but it is ugly too. Both are necessary. A philosophy of beauty would be a lie. But what is worse than a philosophy of beauty is a philosophy that does not embrace life, even in its ugliness. We are in no position to judge how things ought to be. We can only face what is, or turn our heads. Sometimes, though, it is necessary to let go in order to hold on. It would be hard to go through each day if we didn’t have sleep to offer us a respite from the task of facing life fully.
Right now, we are all writing the stories of our lives. The true tragedy would not be a tragic ending, but an ending full of empty pages. I wonder what I could fill my page with tomorrow… I hope that I can.