The Limitations of Desire#
Appetite#
When I was a child, I loved to eat. My face would be covered in watermelon juice, and I could even eat a mouthful of fatty pork with hair. I felt good only when I didn't move after a meal. At that time, on the way home from school, I would often feel hungry and weak, walking on the country road while fantasizing about what I would eat for lunch. I always told my friends that I could now eat a barrel of instant noodles.
Sexual Desire#
Similarly, when I first saw porn at someone else's house, it was a different but equally exciting feeling compared to appetite. See My First Love, Sex Addiction, and Castration.
The Limitations of Thinking#
Desire for Thinking#
Of course, in addition to appetite and sexual desire, I also have a desire for thinking. If we look at the intensity of pleasure, appetite and sexual desire are definitely strong, but as the saying goes, "Food nourishes people, but it can also harm them." Just like the expansion of the Roman Republic, when I was a child, I could digest as much as I ate, but now it's not the same. Especially that one time I ate on New Year's Eve, it made me have to stop eating.
As for sexual desire, it's the same.
So, we can see that "These violent delights have violent ends." - Romeo and Juliet. Or in other words, it's not good to go too far.
Durability of Thought#
As for the joy of thinking, although it can last a long time, there are only a few thoughts that are essential for humans. Just like the old men and women in their seventies and eighties at the village entrance, as long as they understand the principles of treating people and following the Tao, they can evaluate everything. Furthermore, the materials for thinking are also limited. Li Bai and Du Fu wrote many poems, but their central ideas remained the same.
However, they have written a lot, not to express new ideas, but to constantly express their own life experiences and emotions through poetry. This way of expression is certainly creative, but it does not pursue new content, but rather the renewal of form.
The End of Thinking is Art#
There is also the fact that art leans more towards form creation. If thinking is vertical creation, then art is horizontal creation. Art revolves around a certain concept and continuously expresses this concept through various forms. On the other hand, thinking is constantly changing concepts. The end of thinking may not necessarily be religion, but perhaps art and aesthetics.
Beauty on the Edge of Desire#
Standards of Beauty#
If we measure various desires based on the intensity of pleasure and duration, then the subtle joy definitely involves thinking and aesthetics. And the most enduring is aesthetics. It can last a person's entire life. Just like taking a sip of tea, it may not have a strong taste, but it's still passable.
Beauty is something that is difficult to perceive because it is not so intense, but it can still be sensed, plain yet not plain.
What is beauty, what is art, I don't know too much. But beauty is everywhere because it is a human emotion, a feeling. The beauty of things is not the characteristics of the things themselves, but the value bestowed by the subject. By combining the intensity of pleasure and duration of beauty, we can roughly sense what beauty is.
Distinguishing Beauty from Desire#
For example, in pornographic films, it may be all about our sexual desires. But with the same characters, if we take some portraits, the taste changes. When a set of portraits looks good but doesn't elicit a physiological response, that may be the limit of beauty. Of course, everyone has different judgments about what is obscene.
Similarly, with appetite, if we eat recklessly and pursue intense stimulation, that may be appetite. But if we eat with the eyes of a gourmet, perhaps it is beauty.
Therefore, the beauty I understand is very broad because my standards are simple. For example, some people like to listen to instrumental music and think that vocals are not good or too stimulating. For them, listening to instrumental music is beauty.
There is also a feeling similar to the difference between movies and TV dramas. Of course, Love O2O is more like a mini-movie.
[[2024-02-19]]