Somethings, you simply cannot agree with. Even the most agreeable person on the planet, can’t possibly agree with it all.
Each morning, I get a little gift in my email box, a “quote of the day” and I like this. It gives me something to consider at the get-go of things. This morning it was a quote by Charles Baudelaire. I didn’t know who he was, so I had to look him up. That is how much I disagreed with his quote. Turns out, he was a French poet who also produced work as an essayist and art critic. Somehow, too, he was a pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. He lived in the mid-1800s and looked like the kind of guy who might be preoccupied with translating Poe.
Anyway, his quote: “Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.”
Not that I’m any hoity-toity French poet, translator guy, or anything. But anything beautiful that I’ve created has mostly come from whimsy of the heart, giddiness of the soul, the unexplained and mysterious part of the spirit. I can draw a mean stick person, I’ll tell you. There is nothing calculated about that.
As a sidebar, I’m all for reason, and calculation. And certainly, some beautiful things result when they are used. Like the creation of monumental architectural feats, and vaccines, and indoor plumbing, and refrigerators. Those are all beautiful and required a great deal of reason and calculation. But not the finger painting that is taped on that refrigerator door. That manifestation was sheer folly and bedlam. But beautiful.
I’ve learned never to say “never,” — and never to say “always,” or “everything.” It seems there is almost always an exception. So. In this case, I find myself disagreeing with Charles Baudelaire.
Like those old word problems in math. I’d always challenge them in my mind. due to the “always” concept. That’s probably why I was no good at math. And so it would go. “Some apples have stems. All green apples have stems. Few red apples have stems. How many oranges are there?”
And I’d be like, “Back it up here, buddy. Hey, I truly don’t think that all green apples have stems. Well, at one time, they all had stems, but so did the red apples. After much consideration I would say four. Yes. Four oranges. I’m saying four.
And the teacher would put a big red freaking X through my work.
That red X? It was calculated.
Not so beautiful in my book, Charles.
Today, if you disagree with someone, there might be a good reason. Sometimes, it is important to speak up, when we find that we can’t consent to something, when we can’t agree, especially if we suspect that the person speaking is not telling the full story, or even the truth. We sometimes know better. It is up to us to decide.
But no matter.
The best thing is to be kind to ourselves, to be kind to others, and to let the whimsy in our hearts take us to all sorts of beautiful places.
Sounds reasonable, to me.
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“My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I’m right.”
― Ashleigh Brilliant
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“You are always a little bit wrong”
― Hank Green
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“Always ask yourself: “What will happen if I say nothing?”
― Kamand Kojouri
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