E.G.

When I was little, I was familiar with the word "beauty," but I don’t think I ever really understood what the word was supposed to mean.  Of course, I had heard people say that certain women were beautiful or not beautiful, and I think I pretty well understood what was meant in those cases.  "Beautiful," when applied to women, meant something like "attractive," although I knew one could say a woman was beautiful without raising the issue of attraction.  But I also knew that people sometimes said that things, such as sunsets or paintings, were beautiful or not beautiful.  This was the more confusing usage.  I still don’t know what "beautiful" is supposed to mean when it’s applied to sunsets or paintings. 

In this post, Ken Taylor asks whether we should choose a life which contains many useful things, but very little of beauty, or a life which contains many beautiful things, but very little of use.  Ken says he would choose the former life.  I don’t know which life I would choose, but here’s another question.  People use a lot words which might be synonyms for "beauty": they say that certain things are "interesting," or "fun," or "funny," or "strange," or "exciting."  But can something be interesting, fun, funny, strange and exciting without being beautiful?  I think the answer is probably "yes."  If the answer is "yes", then I think most of us could be pretty happy even if we never laid eyes on one beautiful thing, as long as we had enough interesting, fun, funny, strange and exciting things around.  The reverse, however, is probably not the case. 

At any rate, if I had to choose between a life which contains many interesting, fun, funny, strange and exciting things, on the one hand, and a life which contains many beautiful things, on the other, I’d probably take the first life over the second.  At least I know roughly what I would get if I chose the first life.  The second life is sort of a coin toss.