rjb011's blog

It is somewhat difficult to write a summary about this.  Basically, there was a bunch of quotes and then we looked up the artists behind those quotes.  Then we look up as for the reasons why they wrote what they wrote.

Beauty is lost in life, but is immortal in Art.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Makes sense, seeing as he did The Mona Lisa and is still one of the most recognizable paintings in the world.

The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it.

Gustave Courbet

I believe he is the only artist that I know of that ever painted a woman’s vagina.  Definitely belongs to him.  I wonder if he was married?  If he wasn’t, that would explain why.

Whatever is born of internal, spiritual necessity is beautiful.

Vasili Kandinsky

His spirit seems to be quite random.  I cannot make heads or tails of what he is trying to imply.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way–things I had no words for.

Georgia O’Keeffe

I could actually understand this one.  Basically, art as a way of communicating.  A beautiful way of communicating.

To paint, to make images in general, is for me a form of listening.

Francesco Clemente

Eh?  I don’t understand.

All in all, I tried my best to describe what I think about each quote.  Especially so in terms of beauty.  But, I’ll be honest, I had difficulty trying to think up a response, let alone trying to understand.

One would like to think that prejudice does not happen in the workplace.  The problem is, it does.  Prejudice occurs every day.  Especially when hiring a person.  The article mentioned that when hiring a person, it obviously depends on whether the person is male or female.  It also depends on whether they are attractive or not.  At least the article said that.

To be honest, I could care less how attractive the person is when it comes to work.  Work hard, I pat you on the back.  Become lazy, I help the boss kick your butt out the door.  Simple as that, regardless of gender.  I’ll adjust accordingly, but still the same concept.  If every workplace applied that concept, perhaps we wouldn’t have some of these problems.  For instance, nobody would be out of a job.  Wishful thinking, at the very least, but it’s possible.  Basically, life would be more fair if that was to happen.  However, that is not going to happen anytime soon.  Perhaps we should start now and see where it goes.

I believe the reason that ugly and/or abused animals are easiest to adopt because it possibly makes us feel better for ourselves.  At least, in some cases, it is quite possible.  Otherwise, it could be because the animals simply respond better to their humans or masters because they knew nothing except cruelty and pain.  And then somebody adopts them and they are showered with kindness.  In return, the animals react in unusual ways.  Also, have anyone noticed the commercials for say, Siouxland Humane Society and other similar places?  They tend to show off these kinds of animals so as to create the feeling that they might be euthanized if left for too long.  So, that could be the media coverage.

Well, seeing as black is normally associated with evilness…  Otherwise, I truly don’t know.  Perhaps it’s because trying to find a black pet at night is a royal pain in butt?  That could be a reason.  Otherwise I do not know.

My opinion really hasn’t changed.  But my knowledge has.  I now realize how much a woman has to go through because of all of the pressures, whether peer or social pressure, they all play a part.  So, I somewhat understand what a woman has to go through to attract a guy or to move up in the world amongst other things.  Men really do have it easy compared to women.

The connection in our discussions is, obviously, beauty.  The fist two times we had an actual discussion was about beauty in terms of women.  I can’t really say much because I would like to stay alive and have children in the future and not be speaking in a high-pitch, opera-like voice…  So, I’ll be quite general.  It’s amazing how people go to the extreme to make people look “pretty” for media.  Also, being really skinny must be really important cause it is everywhere…  News Flash:  It’s actually MORE unhealthy than being heavy.

I must admit, I would have liked a different choice of topic rather than beauty.  Beauty seems more geared towards women, thus far.  That way, the men can participate rather than twiddling our thumbs, letting the women chat away.  Thankfully, we recently began talking about nature.  So long as we veer away from beauty in terms of women or humans, I’m just fine.  Otherwise, the guys will hardly talk at all in fear of retaliation from the women from a comment.  Which is why I barely talk in our discussions.

The article we had to read for the next session was hard to comprehend.  I received the gist of it, though.  Basically, the Wisdom of Solomon was about beauty.  Solomon (supposedly is Solomon) was pondering why people believed that the beautiful materials were not created by God.  Namely, materials such as fire or water or even the earth itself.  Solomon did not blame them because the people would believe it until they saw it for themselves.  And the creation incident took place quite a while ago.  Billions of years ago, more or less.  So, Solomon certainly did not blame them.  They just simply had to believe that God did.

Well, this was an interesting article.  It really opened my eyes.  I never once thought about how nature in general came about.  Now, however, I must admit a lot of time and especially energy was devoted somehow, someway to make this world existent.  But, I don’t agree with Solomon.  At least not that it was all created by God.  My viewpoints are more scientific, logical.  So, I agree with the Big Bang theory.  The Big Bang theory could explain how Earth came about.  But, what about beforehand?  There’s no evidence about that.  And the Big Bang theory is just that, a theory.  So, I believe that, at one point, there was an ultimate being.  But after that, he or she, or better yet, IT, just let all of its creations loose and essentially let “science” take over.