For sublime objects are vast in their dimensions, beautiful ones comparatively small; beauty should be smooth, and polished; the great rugged and negligent; beauty should shun the right line, yet deviate from it insensibly; the great in many cases love the right line, and when it deviates, it often makes a strong deviation; beauty should not be obscure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy; beauty should not be obscure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy; beauty should be light and delicate; the great ought to be solid, and even even massive.The previous quote is from Edmund Burke's From A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.
Sublime:
lofty, grand, or exalted in thought, expression, or manner or, of outstanding spiritual, intellectual, or moral worth or, tending to inspire awe usually because of elevated quality (as of beauty, nobility, or grandeur) or transcendentexcellence. "Sublime." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 9 Jan. 2015. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sublime>
Beauty:
the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit
I apologize for not posting last week. This week has been full of life changing events and epiphanies. First, I lost my first cousin, Kelsey, this Sunday to a heart attack. He was only thirty one years old. Initially, I refrained from broadcasting this information across my blog for numerous reasons and personal convictions. I have come to believe that there are some moments of one's life that need to be private, or private until the circumstances are fully understood. Deaths, personal failures and illness, I, firmly, believe doesn't need to be placed on display. Further, I have come to value the introspection that these type of events have on a person. Moreover, for creative folks, like myself, the act of retreating into your memories and/or feelings allows for further clarity. Additionally, I believe the retreat, is sacred as the art of dying, itself. However, I have come to the realization that as blogger, my personal experience will color: my writings, my posts via my moods.
My cousin was more than a cousin to me; in fact, I considered him to be my big brother, at least unconsciously. I am my mother's only child and my father's youngest, but my half siblings are at least ten years older than me, and were often, spread over wide distances as I grew up. So, the only siblings I 've known my entire life, have been my first cousins, especially first cousins of my parent's closest siblings. So, in effect, I never really experience a true only child childhood. Nevertheless, most of my childhood was split between Southern California and Texas, and when I was in Texas, I spent most my time with my Aunt Gloria's youngest children, Brittany and Kelsey. My cousin Brittany is younger than me by a year and my cousin Kelsey was older than me by four years. So, as Brittany and me grew up, both of us, grew around Kelsey, who was often a referee during scrabbles, and annoyed with us as we spied on him, just a plain nuances as he became a young man.
I am opinionated about a lot of things. If you were to ask me about philosophy, religion, politics, literature, etc, I would give you my opinion, which I hope was well inform and profound. Yet, on the matter of grief, loss and death, I don't believe I have firm opinion. As I age, I have come to realize one thing about the topic of death; it is different with each case, with each person and different moments in your life. As a child, I went to too many funerals to be healthy. As an adolescent, I was firmly committed to the my atheistic stands on life and death, I had caulked up the death, as gone and unimportant to my oblivious self-centered stance on life. But, this all changed as I became a young adult. I became increasingly aware of my own morality, as I lost people whom I'd never thought I would see in a casket, for instance, I lost my cousin, Jillian to cancer, he was eighteen, but before that, I lost my older fun loving cousin Donshae to an aneurysm, then I lost my oldest aunt, Imogene. Yet, the worst blow came when I lost my mentor, best friend and mother figure, my beloved Tia, Estrella Garcia in 2013, who was more like a mother to me, than my own mother.
It was with my Tia's death, that I lost my footing in reality. I had always put off her death as a event in the future when she was old and grey and I was more mature to handle it. But, that is not the reality of life. People whom you never thought you would see in casket, or on a obituary or in the cold ground, do eventually, end up in a casket,or, in an urn, or returned to the clay, in which we were said to be created from. As the old adage goes, Everyone you know will die, and this includes you too. I think we contemplated our own death's in intervals throughout our lives, but this is more of a side note to what it is I am trying to say: I didn't expect to hear of my dear cousin's death, this soon. I was expecting Kelsey to age, into the unpredictable old sage, who would tell you stories of his outlandish youth. I was expecting to grow old with him. And as I, scrolled down my timeline, in shock, come to realize this will never happen, now. He belongs to time. My unique cousin, perhaps one of my favorite cousins, is gone, forever. I will not get into my current beliefs on the afterlife, in the end, our beliefs on what happens after we die, is of little relevance to our grief in the here and now.Yet, for clarity, I am a believer.
But, believing in an afterlife, doesn't necessarily,take away the pain.You still have to gone on with your life, until your time is up which could take decades, living without the people, you've lost. And even though you will meet new people along the way, none of the potential people you will meet, will ever truly fill in the void, that has been left by your dearly departed.
Now, that I have said my convoluted piece about my dear cousin,my stance on grief and my belief in the afterlife, I will talk about a second grief, I have experience this week, the grief of security, as I watched the unfolding of the Paris Massacre at Charlie Hebdo.
There has been a growing sentiment, lately, among writers in the U.S., maybe around the world. With the passing of more intrusive bills, that were championed on the platform of offering the Western world more protection, in exchange for increasing censorship or surveillance. I don't need to name the bills nor will I go into too much details in this post. Nevertheless, champions of free speech, the writers, the cartoonists, the political commentators, just anyone with an opinion contary to their government, started to think twice about writing, drawing or speaking their minds, for it might bring unfortunate consequences. Yet, with the events that unfolded at the Charlie Heodo as well, with the Sony Hacking scandal, we, the west, realize that we have entered a new era, one of fear. Fear that if you write something that is off color to someone, we could be murdered, fear of the public who might be interested in hearing satire of world leaders, regimes or groups, that are expressing their innate right, could, possibly, lead to their harm. And, even as I watched with awe, the defiant nature of the French people who refused to be silent, I still know that, even, their defiance would be tempered by the events that unfolded during a frantic, day in a cloudy Paris.
Nevertheless, life is, rarely, completely bitter, more bittersweet. As I experienced paradigm shifts, and personal loss, I did experience some good such as: registering for my first semester as MFA student, feeling hopeful about my future, my growth as a writer and the possibilities that await me. I have become more reinvigorated about my life in ways, I couldn't possible articulate. These experience, are the fruity, sweetness after the first note of bitterness one experience in the finest piece of chocolate. For life, even with its horrors, is profoundly beautiful. Existence is beautiful. Small victories, are more than beautiful, are sublime.
My cousin was more than a cousin to me; in fact, I considered him to be my big brother, at least unconsciously. I am my mother's only child and my father's youngest, but my half siblings are at least ten years older than me, and were often, spread over wide distances as I grew up. So, the only siblings I 've known my entire life, have been my first cousins, especially first cousins of my parent's closest siblings. So, in effect, I never really experience a true only child childhood. Nevertheless, most of my childhood was split between Southern California and Texas, and when I was in Texas, I spent most my time with my Aunt Gloria's youngest children, Brittany and Kelsey. My cousin Brittany is younger than me by a year and my cousin Kelsey was older than me by four years. So, as Brittany and me grew up, both of us, grew around Kelsey, who was often a referee during scrabbles, and annoyed with us as we spied on him, just a plain nuances as he became a young man.
I am opinionated about a lot of things. If you were to ask me about philosophy, religion, politics, literature, etc, I would give you my opinion, which I hope was well inform and profound. Yet, on the matter of grief, loss and death, I don't believe I have firm opinion. As I age, I have come to realize one thing about the topic of death; it is different with each case, with each person and different moments in your life. As a child, I went to too many funerals to be healthy. As an adolescent, I was firmly committed to the my atheistic stands on life and death, I had caulked up the death, as gone and unimportant to my oblivious self-centered stance on life. But, this all changed as I became a young adult. I became increasingly aware of my own morality, as I lost people whom I'd never thought I would see in a casket, for instance, I lost my cousin, Jillian to cancer, he was eighteen, but before that, I lost my older fun loving cousin Donshae to an aneurysm, then I lost my oldest aunt, Imogene. Yet, the worst blow came when I lost my mentor, best friend and mother figure, my beloved Tia, Estrella Garcia in 2013, who was more like a mother to me, than my own mother.
It was with my Tia's death, that I lost my footing in reality. I had always put off her death as a event in the future when she was old and grey and I was more mature to handle it. But, that is not the reality of life. People whom you never thought you would see in casket, or on a obituary or in the cold ground, do eventually, end up in a casket,or, in an urn, or returned to the clay, in which we were said to be created from. As the old adage goes, Everyone you know will die, and this includes you too. I think we contemplated our own death's in intervals throughout our lives, but this is more of a side note to what it is I am trying to say: I didn't expect to hear of my dear cousin's death, this soon. I was expecting Kelsey to age, into the unpredictable old sage, who would tell you stories of his outlandish youth. I was expecting to grow old with him. And as I, scrolled down my timeline, in shock, come to realize this will never happen, now. He belongs to time. My unique cousin, perhaps one of my favorite cousins, is gone, forever. I will not get into my current beliefs on the afterlife, in the end, our beliefs on what happens after we die, is of little relevance to our grief in the here and now.Yet, for clarity, I am a believer.But, believing in an afterlife, doesn't necessarily,take away the pain.You still have to gone on with your life, until your time is up which could take decades, living without the people, you've lost. And even though you will meet new people along the way, none of the potential people you will meet, will ever truly fill in the void, that has been left by your dearly departed.
Now, that I have said my convoluted piece about my dear cousin,my stance on grief and my belief in the afterlife, I will talk about a second grief, I have experience this week, the grief of security, as I watched the unfolding of the Paris Massacre at Charlie Hebdo.
There has been a growing sentiment, lately, among writers in the U.S., maybe around the world. With the passing of more intrusive bills, that were championed on the platform of offering the Western world more protection, in exchange for increasing censorship or surveillance. I don't need to name the bills nor will I go into too much details in this post. Nevertheless, champions of free speech, the writers, the cartoonists, the political commentators, just anyone with an opinion contary to their government, started to think twice about writing, drawing or speaking their minds, for it might bring unfortunate consequences. Yet, with the events that unfolded at the Charlie Heodo as well, with the Sony Hacking scandal, we, the west, realize that we have entered a new era, one of fear. Fear that if you write something that is off color to someone, we could be murdered, fear of the public who might be interested in hearing satire of world leaders, regimes or groups, that are expressing their innate right, could, possibly, lead to their harm. And, even as I watched with awe, the defiant nature of the French people who refused to be silent, I still know that, even, their defiance would be tempered by the events that unfolded during a frantic, day in a cloudy Paris.
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