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In Search Of Absolute Beauty (Patreon)

Published:
2021-03-26 15:57:19
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

New video essay exploring the meaning of, and our longing for, absolute beauty.

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In Search Of Absolute Beauty

Start your 30 DAY FREE TRIAL now at https://mubi.com/likestoriesofold With the support of Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union. Help me make more videos! Support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/LikeStoriesofOld Leave a One-Time Donation: https://www.paypal.me/TomvanderLinden Follow me: Sign up for my weekly newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/likestoriesofold Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LikeStoriesofOld Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tom.vd.linden Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tom_LSOO About this video essay: An eclectic exploration of the meaning of, and our longing for, absolute beauty. Sources: John O’Donohue – Beauty: The Invisible Embrace: https://amzn.to/3fg0pwx Further Reading: Like Stories of Old – The Complete Reading List: https://kit.co/likestoriesofold/reading-list 10 Books that changed my life: https://kit.co/likestoriesofold/10-books-that-changed-my-life 10 More books that inspired my thinking: https://kit.co/likestoriesofold/10-more-books-that-inspired-my-thinking Media included: A Hidden Life; A Star is Born; Amadeus; Annihilation; At Eternity’s Gate; Baby Driver; Before Midnight; Before Sunset; Black Swan; Cloud Atlas; Days of Heaven; Doctor Who; Dreams; Equilibrium; First Man; For vs. Ferrari; Gravity; Her; Interstellar; Into the Wild; Knight of Cups; Loving Vincent; Nomadland; Portrait of a Lady on Fire; Soul; Sound of Metal; Sunshine; The Thin Red Line; The Counselor; The End of the Tour; The Great Beauty; The Greatest Showman; The Grey; The Intouchables; The New World; the Perks of Being a Wallflower; The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; The Shawshank Redemption; The Tree of Life; To the Wonder; Voyage of Time Business inquiries: lsoo@standard.tv Music: Slow Meadow – On A Bed of Green Blades Bytheway-May – Always A Dreamer Steven Gutheinz – That Spot of Sunshine Tony Anderson – Chasm Slow Meadow – Palemote Music licensed from Musicbed. Elevate your videos with record-label quality music here: http://share.mscbd.fm/likestoriesofold

Comments

Anthony Bonet

Forgive me for joining this conversation so late. I have been dealing with some health issues. Thank you for a very moving post. Of course, the simple existence of this beautiful video gives the very concept of “searching for ‘Absolute Beauty’” finite boundaries which, because of the very nature of your work, invites analysis. The music you use is beautiful yet, because of the necessities of the platform, “copyright free” and hence anonymous.This is not a criticism but, rather, an observation. The music seems like a never ending loop of swelling strings. As I watched the video for the third or fourth time (thank you for making them so eminently watchable), I tried to imagine no music at all or, perhaps, a different piece of music — Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” perhaps. I feel certain that someone like Robert Bresson would say that an identifiable piece of music would instantly rupture the moment. As an ardent admirer of elegiac music (my favorites being Bach’s “Air on a G String” Albinoni’s “Adagio In G Minor” or Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”) I could argue the opposite and suggest that an identifiable piece might enhance the experience for the viewer. Regardless, the video is replete with heart-tugging moments which, along with your doleful narration, you weave together masterfully to captures the elusive melancholy of sunset. I wonder if it is possible to speak at any length about these transcendent moments of fleeting beauty without being swept up in emotion. It seems “natural” to us that we speak of these fleeting moments with a sense of melancholy because, for the most part, we do NOT live in the moment. It is only on later reflection that we realize how precious these moments are and, by then, they are gone. Is beauty by necessity transitory? My favorite poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay is “Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare” which closes with the lines: O blinding hour; O holy, terrible day, When first that shaft into his vision shone of light — anatomized — Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they who — though once only — and then but far away — have heard her massive sandal set on stone. In the common “Western” experience of time — linear time — is beauty inexorably linked to temporality? Is something beautiful because it is fleeting? I do not believe that there exists something objective and quantifiable in the universe that we can call “Beauty”. Beauty is something we subjective, hair-splitting, critters endow. I do not believe it exists independent of an observer. Finally, I wonder if our language (and, hence, the way we think) locks us out of a transcendent experience of beauty. In the video, you say that people, “…quite literally enter a higher spiritual realm when they are immersed in their passion.” What happens if we strive to remove any judgment from those experiences? What if beauty is neither higher nor lower? Neither absolute nor conditional? Both rare and common; both exquisite and ordinary? When I was a young boy, I was forced to attend a Catholic school — this is probably the chief reason that I am now an atheist. Nevertheless, the ethical and philosophical constructs of Catholicism are with me still. I remember one day in religion class having a contentious discussion with Sister Anna Theresa who insisted, “Everyone is special.” I countered, “If everyone is special then no-one is special.” I wonder if we were both right. Thanks again for the beautiful post.

James Billings

This video was a moment of absolute beauty to me. For a long time, I've struggled to put into words that need for connection, but watching this, I felt recognized and heard.