Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

- Confucius 

What is beauty?

Just a couple of days ago I went on a hike up in the Mission Trails area of San Diego.  The hills and trails are an amazing place to see the natural world, get some exercise, and really appreciate the beauty that surrounds us.  It’s a wonder how easily people, myself included, can block out the simplistic splendor the world has to offer.  In the fast paced consumerism world we live in, it isn’t sexy or profitable to advertise the beauty in things that don't easily translate into profit.  Apropos to this idea is the very word beauty.  I’ve often found my mind going directly to an image of a gorgeous woman when I hear the word beauty, and it’s not surprising when we consider every American is bombarded with pictures, movies, advertisments, and such constantly telling us that is the accepted form of beauty.  Now there’s nothing wrong with thinking of women as a form of beauty.  I for one am completely anamored with women, however, as Confucius has told us, beauty exists everywhere.  We just need to open our eyes to it.

Does Everything really have beauty?

If you think about it, saying everything has beauty might seem suspect.  Garbage heaps and sewage plants aren’t the most attractive places to be or to visually admire.  Some might argue that abandoned buildings are not very attractive either.  However, if you examine each without the accepted negative connotations associated with them, what do you see then?  Nothing exists in a vacuum, but opening yourself up to a new perspective might lead you to a new appreciation for something you once thought had no beauty at all.  Certainly you may find that some things are much easier to identify as beautiful as opposed to others.  That’s natural. 

Creating a new beauty

Now for the hard part.  Take a moment and set aside all you know about beauty, all you expect and want from beauty, all you have been conditioned to believe is beautiful.  Just try to silence the expectations and just appreciate a subject for what it is.  Contemplate the value of the object before you solely on its merits. Practice with several different things and see if it jars your way of thinking.  Really look, let yourself feel. 

Now, what do you see?

Abandoned places drive the Imagination

I've always had a slightly morbid fascination with old and abandoned things.   Stories like this one are almost irresistible.   There's something about seeing ships, houses, cars, and the like just sitting there, waiting for their oweners to come back, even though we know they never will.  The possibilities about what happened, why the items were abandoned, and the story behind the story is too much for me to pass up. 

People ask me all the time where my ideas come from for my short stories.  Well letting my imagination wander when it comes to lost and abandoned things is a perfect answer.  The possibilities of where a story can go are endless.  There's something about everyday recognizable items seen in such disarray or disrepair that is simultaneously intriguing and distrubing.  That's where the imagination comes into play.  It's not so much that I enjoy seeing abandoned hospitals or haunting ghost ships, but the realization that at any time, the life we know can turn on a dime, disappear and never return is so stark and real.  So true that is, if you've never heard the story of Centralia Pennsylvania, you might want to reconsider just how dramatically life can change.

To be sure, most of the things I've used as an example here are somewhat unsettling.  However, look at the bigger picture here for a moment.  With such turmoil and uncertainty in the world, such things make a great case for seizing the moment.  Waiting another day, or putting things off can only do one thing: Waste time.  Don't let that happen!  You'll only regret it in more ways than one.  Trust me.  Just remember that inspiration and creativity can come from almost anywhere, even an abandoned house!

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