“I think Ballard was on to something important when he talked about how things that humans have constructed can be beautiful in ways that they don’t understand. What I like about his writing is the lyricism: his novels are full of the most beautiful images. He always said he wanted to be a painter, but didn’t have the talent. But when you read his books you see they are galleries of images.”
This quote is taken from a recent interview with the author John Gray that can be found at this address. Why this remained in my mind after I’d read through the sentence was the eloquent imagery: and potentially the simplest of truths.
Do we ever know when something we do/have/see is beautiful? And if that is ever the case, would it not be that it would be our human understanding of beauty — that is, our fancy at any given moment and not something that could be considered universally beautiful?
I would think our bias in every moment is enough to disturb our minds — but that means I am even more prone to letting my mind continue to work without understanding it perfectly.
It is the image in our mind that will be important in the end.
