Everyday Canvas

Idealism and Noticing

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 

Prompt: “Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek
But in our mind? and if we were not weak
Should we be less in deed than in desire?”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
What do you think the poet is asking? And what are your opinions on the subject?

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I consider Shelley a poet of emotional extremes, and as such, here he dramatizes the battle between caution and idealism. No wonder he questions why what we so desire in our mind stays undone or partly done, if only we weren’t so weak.

To paraphrase the poet’s words, his words merely say, in question form: What we go after, like love, beauty and truth, is already inside our mind, showing us a map. The reason we don’t put those ideals into action is because we are weak.

I think Shelley is passionate with his wording as an overly hopeful romantic. Not that we should stop seeking love, beauty, and truth inside ourselves, but putting what we find to actions just can’t be done, always. Imagine forgiving and loving a terrorist who demolishes a whole city and kills all the people in it! Only Christ might forgive and love such a person, and in my opinion, only Christ would.

In this sense, a perfect achievement of the highest ideals means a Shangri-la or a pipe-dream if you will. It is just not doable in the world we are living in, if not for anything but for the constant change everything about us goes through, and this includes our language. As such, this year, I took upon myself to read all the novels of Dickens. Dickens is fun to read and his novels were written in the middle of the nineteenth century, which is not so far away when compared to the historical age of our planet. Still, the language and the author’s storytelling can try a reader. And this is a minimal deed that emerged from my wishful mind.

This quote, by the way, comes from a personal poem by Shelley, an account of a discussion he had with his friend Byron. In the poem, when Byron, named Maddalo, questions the above words in the quote, Shelley (named Julian in the poem) answers,” there are many more things in the world which are not attempted by man. Moreover, man has not exploited his own capacities fully.”
To that Maddalo (Byron) answers, “You talk Utopia.”

I wholeheartedly agree with Byron, however wishing that Shelley’s pipe dream could be possible.

For: "Space Blog" 

Prompt: From Patrick McDonagh ’s "Invalid Item" 
The specimen we found is "Out there, there is a hidden world most don't take time to see."
Do you agree that most don't take time to enjoy the beauty that is right in front of them? Why?

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I believe this is a missing-out-on-life quote, pointing to the fact that when we get so wrapped up in our little lives and its shortcomings, we do not notice or pay attention to the gifts strewn on our way, by nature or by our day-to-day living. We overlook the kind words thrown our way or do not notice tiny gifts of nature, such as how a white ibis searches for worms on a freshly mown lawn. Probably, we may concentrate on the bills to be paid, the rooms to be cleaned, or the stress of what we must do according to our daily agenda.

Yet, there are a whole lot of roses to smell, people to appreciate, and oceans to delight in, while even inside a speck of dust a whole universe exists. We can, however, pay attention to those and many other things, if we are able to achieve a clarity of thought that can enable us to notice what we miss in our busy, everyday lives. This needs conscious effort and is not easy to do, but so well worth the work.