As far as I am concerned, beauty and the beast are a permanent part of human condition. Significant also, we can do something about them. These two points sonehow constitute our lifelong journey.
I am a firm believer of beauty. Beauty is so ubiquitous and so underlying that we're even unaware of it and we take it for granted. Beauty varies so much in its forms that it sometimes is only in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes beauty stands out because the beast serves as its backdrop. Without the beast, beauty cannot be so remarkable and alive. One of the greatest artistic examples of the interwoven relationship between beauty and the beast is Picasso's masterpiece--Guernica.
Giernica deplicits how Nazi Germany attacked Spain in various aspects and details. Despite the deceased women and babies, sharp violent swords and so on, the remaining flower stands so still, so quitely and so beautifully in such a backdrop. The light in the top middle of that shines so brightly, even dazzlingly below all that human catastrophe. Beauty and the beast co-exist and interweave so twistedly in such a masterpiece.
As for human nature, inside all of the most amazing characters lives both beauty and the beast. Hitler, who was the major beast Guernica deplicited in the last paragraph, has done a lot of good "beautiful" deeds to revive Germany and even brought short-term prosperity for Germany at the beginning of the war. However, his patriotism was in the most extreme and exclusive form. Scarlet, one of my favourite characters in literature, is an angel faced, kind, hopeful, resilient egotist. Meanwhile, Melanie is in sharp contrast with Scarlet for her flawless character in this book. I once wrote an after-reading essay about how girls like me dream pf becoming Melanie but all end up with the realization that our nature is more similar to that of Scarlet. I believe all girls constantly swing between these two characters and are a mixture of Scarlet and Melanie.
Time restricted, I just cite very few examples to demonstrate that beauty and the beast are a permanent human condition. Please forgive me. Now I want to illustrate the equally important point-- we can do something about them.
It is not a matter of "can", but a matter of "are". We are permanently doing something about beauty and the beast since their existence. When we first become aware of beauty and the beast within us and outside us, we begin to wonder and think about them. Ever since our birth, we believe the world consist of only beauty because our parents build that fake but perfect world for us, we can get whatever we want immediately. However, once that false inpression breaks, babies cry to show their confusion of the beast. That's probably the very first thought about beauty and the beast. And apparently, the older we grow, the deeper we think, Phil Donahue even wrote an essay about it. We think about it. On top of that, we try to do something about it. Mostly we try to expand the scale, deepen the level of beauty. The most brilliant romantism poets and artists do so. And we also endeavor to transform the beast into beauty. Usually in time of grave war, the most beautiful things happen, thr most exciting fight against the beast occur, revealing the kindest and bravest of human nature. However, some of us also enlarge "the beast" and alter beauty into the beast, like Adolf Hitler mentioned above.
All in all, even for the people who aren't aware of the co-existence of beauty and the beast, they are just a permanent human condition. And our entire life journey can be treated as a process of thinking about them and do things concerned beauty and the beast.
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