why does what was beautiful shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?
Interpretation
Beauty can often hide deeper, darker realities that may only be understood after reflection.
This quote suggests that what appears beautiful on the surface may mask underlying truths that are not immediately evident. In hindsight, once the dark realities are revealed, the perception of beauty can shatter, highlighting the complexity of human experiences and emotions where aesthetic allure may distract from harsher truths.
In practice
During a discussion on art in a philosophy class.
The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nonetheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear.
It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?
She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn't do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.
Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.
...I had to point at Hanna. But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she had done when I chose her. I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible. ...And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents.
I took all the blame. I admitted mistakes I hadn't made, intentions I'd never had. Whenever she turned cold and hard, I begged her to be good to me again, to forgive me and love me. Sometimes I had the feeling that she hurt herself when she turned cold and rigid. As if what she was yearning for was the warmth of my apologies, protestations, and entreaties. Sometimes I thought she just bullied me. But either way, I had no choice.
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
People say maybe we have a soul and chimpanzees don't. I feel that it's quite possible that if we have souls, chimpanzees have souls as well.
It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.
To be popular one must be a mediocrity.
Judge the Catholic Church not by those who barely live by its spirit, but by the example of those who live closest to it.
I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that thatβs a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isnβt insane. We are only doing philosophy.
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