“Imagination is funny” goes an old song “it can make cloudy days sunny …” For the more intellectual, we have Milton’s ” “mind can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.” True thoughts .
But they hardly apply to declared modern aesthetics. It is no longer appreciation that is the key to happiness, but pure quantity. A lot of anything (even misery _ read the books!) is what winning in life is all about .
Those “ancient” notions about valuing things applied to times in which folks did not have a lot to count. Oh, there was the moon and the scent of roses, but also disease and hunger. Masses of people could not accumulate mountains of stuff .
According to media and politics, the only concern of modern Americans is how many dollars they think they have, how new their houses look, how many shallow experiences they can brag about. Not a moon gaze or rose sniff in the bunch .
I suspect most people are more appreciative in their private lives. Unfortunately, none of that translates to public exposure. Appreciation is the road to ruin. Our shallow philosophies and politics reflect that .
Whatever happened to “cups running over ?”
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 