Cloudscape

As everything is relative, so everything is in itself equal in value, equally beautiful and equally abominable — infinitely beautiful and infinitely abominable. Everything being equal in beauty, and having no real beauty of itself, the only thing that we should seek is the perception of beauty in itself, since that is the only real beauty we will find. Or rather, it is the closest to real beauty we can ever find — for no beauty is real. Beauty is but in our minds. It is something we imagine, and by imagining it, we make it real.

Outside our imagination, nothing is ever beautiful, and this is a curse we must bear; for whatever we may think to be beautiful, it is never beautiful in itself, and so no beauty we ever see will last outside ourselves; and it may be that when we think we have found beauty, it is only to find later that it no longer holds any beauty to us anymore. If beauty lies but in ourselves, it can never be certain, for nothing that lies in ourselves is. What lies in ourselves can always change.

The tragedy is that the perception of beauty, which is all that matters in the universe, is infinitely fragile, and it may shatter literally in a moment through the force of suffering, or worse, ignorance.

Because perception is so relative, so too is beauty, and beauty can be perceived in literally anything at all, no matter how ugly we tend to perceive it. Thus, to find beauty one must not only seek what one sees as beautiful, but also see the things you have already found as beautiful. The perception of beauty is called love, though love may also be many other things.

Things have no value of themselves whatsoever. Things can only have value to us when we give them that value, and one can only give something value through love. If life seems worthless, that is because you give it no value. If life seems precious, it is because you give it its value. Neither is an absolute truth. But why should we choose to give only certain things in life their value in the form of love, while not others?

In everything there is infinite beauty; in what things one sees beauty is but a matter of preference. To say that the beauty of something is greater than that of something else is prejudice, for if all beauty is infinite, there is none that is greater than any another. There is inexhaustible beauty in all things, and to be fully conscious of it would mean to be God.

Since everything is perception and so everything is but as we perceive it, everything is of infinite and therefore equal beauty. It is therefore impossible to do or create anything that is more or less beautiful than anything else, except to oneself or to a specific other person. There is beauty only in love, the appreciation of beauty.

As everything is equal in beauty, it is meaningless to seek beauty in anything but the perception of the beauty in all things in itself, which is love. To seek to love all things is the only thing we ever need to do, but unfortunately, since we are unable to love all things, we must often confine ourselves to the things we have already learned to love, lest, in trying to love the things that are still hurtful to us, we would destroy ourselves. Yet our task remains but to learn to love those things we cannot yet love, and to more fully love those things that we already do.

It is a question of balance, therefore, between loving what we find (yin), and finding what we love (yang), in order to find love, which is the only thing we should seek.

Ultimately, love itself is the only thing of value, that is to say, the only thing that gives value to our lives. Thus, everything is of infinite value, and yet nothing by itself is of any value whatsoever.

In everything there is infinite beauty; in what things one sees beauty is but a matter of preference. To say that the beauty of something is greater than that of something else is prejudice, for if all beauty is infinite, there is none that is greater than any another. There is inexhaustible beauty in all things, and to be fully conscious of it would mean to be God.

Since everything is perception and so everything is but as we perceive it, everything is of infinite and therefore equal beauty. It is therefore impossible to do or create anything that is more or less beautiful than anything else, except to oneself or to a specific other person. There is beauty only in love, the appreciation of beauty.

As everything is equal in beauty, it is meaningless to seek beauty in anything but the perception of the beauty in all things in itself, which is love. To seek to love all things is the only thing we ever need to do, but unfortunately, since we are unable to love all things, we must often confine ourselves to the things we have already learned to love, lest, in trying to love the things that are still hurtful to us, we would destroy ourselves. Yet our task remains but to learn to love those things we cannot yet love, and to more fully love those things that we already do.

It is a question of balance, therefore, between loving what we find (yin), and finding what we love (yang), in order to find love, which is the only thing we should seek.

Ultimately, love itself is the only thing of value, that is to say, the only thing that gives value to our lives. Thus, everything is of infinite value, and yet nothing by itself is of any value whatsoever.

Messier registered hundreds of planetary nebula in order not to be distracted by them in his search for comets. Today, planetary nebula prove to be even more beautiful to us than any comet as yet observed.

Perhaps we can learn from this: anything can become beautiful, if only we look close enough.

Messier registered hundreds of planetary nebula in order not to be distracted by them in his search for comets. Today, planetary nebula prove to be even more beautiful to us than any comet as yet observed.

Perhaps we can learn from this: anything can become beautiful, if only we look close enough.

Everything has unique aspects of beauty surpassed by nothing else in the universe.

Let life and all of life be your lover, and cherish all beauty it brings.

All emotions are motivated in some way or other by some kind of love; even fear, for if one loved nothing one would have nothing to fear; even hate, for if one did not love to hurt one would have nothing hate; even loathing, for if one did not love that which is opposed to what one loathes, one would have nothing to loathe. Therefore, without love one is emotionless, and that is why love alone, in some form or other, is the only thing that can resolve emotionlessness.

As all emotions have some element of love, the only thing which could be fully opposed to love would be indifference - or not even indifference, as even that can perhaps said to be an emotion sometimes. Rather, then, the only thing we could call it is unlove; that which falls towards lower levels of beauty, closer to nothingness, whereas love strives towards greater beauty, closer to infinity.

Many scientists attribute our every quality, be it directly or indirectly, to genetic evolution. Art becomes a means to show off to attract partners, love becomes a means to keep them and others with them.
However, this narrow view of evolution is incomplete; it has already been shown that evolution works through at least two mechanism of selection: natural selection and sexual selection. However, a third mechanism of selection is so absurdly obvious that it it easily overlooked; the third mechanism of selection is our own: choice. "Intelligent selection," as it might be called. The first is unconscious; the second is conscious; the third is self-conscious. The first created the second, the second the third, though the three transition into one another gradually.
Natural selection is the first and most basic mechanism, which depends on survival of the fittest; this mechanism is partly genetic in that it applies to genetics, but also of importance before and beside genetics, as it applies just as well on chemical, atomic and even lower levels, beginning from the very birth of the universe.
Sexual selection is the second mechanism, depending on sexual attraction; this is, arguably, the only of the three mechanisms which is purely genetic, depending on how one interprets "selection." A bacterium does not feel sexual attraction during conjugation, or a virus during insertion, or an oxygen atom during combustion, or a neutron when it collides with a fissile atom, yet these are all examples of reproduction. However, unless matter is conscious, this is not "selection."
Finally, neurological selection is the third and as yet the last we know. One might say that this mechanism is barely genetic at all, but it may be that it is partly epigenetic, though more research would be required. It is known that the activity of certain genes in our brain cells can change over time. It is also known that we may increase certain chemicals in our brain by desiring their effects; what, then, if the latter partly involves the former, and we may change the activity of our genes indirectly by desiring to do so? And what if these epigenetic changes affect the epigenetics of our gametes? This remains speculation.
Be it in part genetic or entirely memetic, neurological selection has dominated our evolution over the past thirty thousand years. For a large part, our sense of beauty is for a large part a mere side effect of our genetic evolution, but this side effect has started to lead a life of its own, and grew more and more sophisticated without any further genetic influence.
The collective unconscious was programmed, mostly genetically, to appreciate certain environments more than others by instinct because they were more favorable, and to appreciate all their aspects: birdsong for instance as a sign of life, flowing streams to lead to fruiting plants, distant views to detect approaching danger, physical appearance to find a successful partner or friend, aromas to find food that is healthy, taste to examine its contents. These are all things that increase likelihood of survival.
But flowing from these simpler perceptions grew something far more complex; the brain took over, and used these perceptions for itself. It improved its enjoyment of beauty not with the purpose to ensure chances of survival, but because it found it pleasurable, and to seek pleasure is simply how the brain is meant to work. The brain started to evolve by itself without much regard of evolution. It is because of this that among humans we see phenomena such as asceticism, celibacy, even masochism, phenomena which from an evolutionary viewpoint are contradictory. This is because the brain has acquired a will of its own, detached from genetic evolution; genetic evolution plays part in neurological evolution as neurological evolution stems from genetic evolution, but it no longer depends entirely on it, just as genetic evolution no longer depends entirely on chemical evolution. The brain has become so complex that it has become like an ecosystem of itself, with its own species.
Thus, aside from viability there came a second selector, and it was enjoyability; today, the latter has become far more prominent in our world than the former, and it no longer has very much to do with viability. Think of the things you do in your free time for enjoyment: how great will their effect be on your chances of survival or those of your offspring? The answer is, very little.
Of course, everything may indirectly alter our chances of survival, but relative to other things you might be doing instead, most leisurely activities will not do so to any significant extent. From a purely evolutionary standpoint, we are wasting the majority of our time, with a things ranging from smalltalk to art. All of these activities have an effect on our chances of survival, but it is so small that relative to those of other species, our activities are utterly irrelevant. If we were to survive rather than live, we would behave as animals. Our average pastimes score extremely low on the evolutionary ladder, though even in an environment as we have, we could do far better.
The memetics of neurological selection may be both collective (through the collective unconscious), but also individual, since the brain, especially in humans, is so complex that it may perhaps undergo such a rapid evolution throughout life that one's sense of beauty is developed through one's own life. How their sense of beauty would develop would depend on their genetics, environment, and a third factor of how the brain would interact with itself, since, as said, the brain has become as complex as an ecosystem.