What If There's More to Life than Just Pleasure?
"Is there inherent value in real experiences, whether pleasurable or painful? Do you yourself have more value when you're experiencing real life's pleasures and pains?"
We Crave More
We assume that things we are attracted to will relieve our suffering and raise our happiness.
Unselfed and Decentered by Beauty
"There are lots of things in the world that give us acute pleasure. There are also lots of things in the world that make us feel marginal. But there's almost nothing other than beauty that does those two things simultaneously, that gives us acute pleasure at the very moment that it makes us feel marginal and happy to be on the margins, to stand back, to listen to the piece of music and just feel awe at what has been created."
~ Elaine Scarry
Framing is Never Arbitrary
I think everything can be photographed,
it depends on how it's seen.
Everything that's photographed is photographed for pleasure.
~ Manuel Álvarez Bravo
The Idea of the Taste
"A man finds
a melon by the road and continues up
the hill thinking it is the warm melon
that will remain after he has forgotten
the ruins and sea of the summer. He tells
himself this even as the idea of the taste
is replacing what the melon tasted like."
~ Jack Gilbert