Quote for the day

"We live to discover beauty; all else is a form of waiting." -Khalil Gibran

This is a quote that has stuck in my mind since I first saw it, sometime around 1999. The world was such a different place then, which is strange to think about. Before the world trade towers fell. Before george bush. I was in college in Washington, D.C., my sophomore or junior year. Back then I used to walk from american university, which is at 4400 Mass Ave, to SoHo Tea and Coffee in Dupont circle. there i would write in my journal, put off work, and peopel watch in general. It was a really good place to peopel watch, I remember, because of the bizarreness of the people who would frequent that particular establishment. One particular night, I was walking down Massachussetts Ave., passed the vice president's house at the naval observatory, but not very far. across the street in fact. There's not much there really. On that side of the street, you won't find much to look at, it overlooks a particularly rough patch of Rock Creek Park, but at one point, right before a mosque in fact, there is a little clearing, with the copper bust of a poet surrounded by some copper birds. the poet is Khalil Gibran. At the cente rof the structure is a small fountain, with some benches surrounding it. One each bench is a different quotation, about the nature of love or life, which is often the subject of Gibran's work. this particular quote struck me. "We live to discover beauty; all else is a form of waiting." I wrote it down in my journal, stopped to rest, then walked back down to Dupont.

I think this quote has underscored my life since then. It gave me a purpose. Call me a romantic, but I believe it's true. Beauty is this thing, more and idea really than anything else. Superficially, it should mean nothing. Beauty doesn't pay your bills, make your breath fresh, or add years to your life. It's necessity isn't apparent in any logical sense, but for some reason, we are all drawn to it. However we define beauty, we seek it out in between whatever functions are necesary for our routine survival. Maybe because there is nothign routine about beauty. Survival is what keeps us alive. Beauty is why we stay alive. Maybe I'm full of shit. As far as having an ethos goes, I would rather follow love or beauty than what a religion says.