My planner shows my plan for this evening: to stay in and finish a wonderful novel I’m reading. Last night La Bella and I went to an excellent concert of 20th century piano music, with slides from the Hubble telescope. It made me think about beauty. I listened to the beautiful music so arduously and intentionally composed by humans. I also looked at the amazing beauty created by God, the enormous vistas of color and line, so far from any living creature that it seems absurd to think that there would be any point in making it so gorgeous.
Was it made for God and the angels to enjoy? Did God plan on the Hubble telescope and lovingly create something awe-inspiring for it to show to us? Or are those lines and colors mere lengths of light, possessed of no beauty until our brains give it to them?
I thought about that all through the concert, really, while enjoying the music and the images. La Bella and I met so many of our friends at this concert that it was positively a social occasion.
I’m making great efforts to work on relationships, that being one of my New Year’s resolutions, and am doing well. I’m answering emails, making coffee dates with colleagues, catching up with people I haven’t seen for awhile, remembering to spend time with my family as well as just thinking of them, and even making a point of connecting with clients.
These things should be good for me and eventually perhaps for business as well.
But I think there are people who would find it odd that I should need to write “strengthen relationships” either as a resolution or as a daily discipline to check off. For me, it is not natural. I enjoy being with people, I like sparkling conversation, but I am inclined at any given moment to stay by myself, and would not naturally seek people out or leap to accept invitations.
I have 10 new Twitter followers this week, too. 34 new follower alerts, but only 10 real ones, presumably because many of the followers unfollowed when I didn’t follow back. A microcosm of the world? Not so much, actually, since people still invite me places even though I so rarely attend.
But I’m doing better.