Eric Fesmire In class Reading Number #3 One with Beauty

We were given a quote towards the beginning of the year by C.S. Lewis on beauty. In it, he said "we do not merely want to see beauty...we want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it..."

This idea of unity with something else expands to more than just beauty. Throughout history, marriages have been seen as two individuals becoming one. Eastern religions contain with them elements of becoming one with the universe upon death. It isn't until our Western culture that we have begun to value individuals as something to be cherished above the collective. Even so, the western idea of beauty still has the sentiments that Lewis expresses. We do want to be united, but we don't want to lose our sense of self. I would say that we want to step away from the beauty when it is all said and done and be ourselves again. Maybe this is why our experiences of beauty have declined as time as gone on. We are so engrained in what we are doing that we cannot take the time to lose ourselves in something else.