Today my feelings are hurting me (James, source of accurate descriptions, has given me this one). Where is my handsome prince? Where is my luxurious castle? Where is my beautiful swan-body? Was I cheated, or since I am clearly not in line for a happy ever after, perhaps... perhaps... I am evil?
So yeah... today... emotions not good... concentration shot to sh*t... walking around in a blurry cloud of misery. Poor concentration is certainly not a survival trait.
But this evening was beautiful. So beautiful it broke my bubble of bad Red and yellow autumn trees glowed in the golden light. the clouds were fluffy and peachy. The gorgeous young man next door smiled his sweet smile and gave me a cute little wave as I drove in, and a full rainbow presided over the washing line as I brought in the washing. And hey... here I am back in the world again!
At the start of the year, after a walk to Dawson Falls on Mt Taranaki, A asked me why I thought we evolved to appreciate beauty. I couldn't come up with a reason. But now I'm thinking... too much misery and stress is not good for us (I went to an awesome "resilience" seminar at work a while ago which touched on this. I intended to blog about at the time and maybe will soon). We need something to activate our "happy" hormones and neurological pathways or we get horribly depressed and life feels like it's not worth living (interestingly we are not the only animals that suffer from depression) and we can't be having sex or eating ALL the time... so maybe "beauty" pathways and "fun" pathways have co-opted those other pathways to keep us happy more of the time. Because let's face it... unless you're in a flight or fight situation, stress is really NOT that great!
What do you think?
So yeah... today... emotions not good... concentration shot to sh*t... walking around in a blurry cloud of misery. Poor concentration is certainly not a survival trait.
But this evening was beautiful. So beautiful it broke my bubble of bad Red and yellow autumn trees glowed in the golden light. the clouds were fluffy and peachy. The gorgeous young man next door smiled his sweet smile and gave me a cute little wave as I drove in, and a full rainbow presided over the washing line as I brought in the washing. And hey... here I am back in the world again!
At the start of the year, after a walk to Dawson Falls on Mt Taranaki, A asked me why I thought we evolved to appreciate beauty. I couldn't come up with a reason. But now I'm thinking... too much misery and stress is not good for us (I went to an awesome "resilience" seminar at work a while ago which touched on this. I intended to blog about at the time and maybe will soon). We need something to activate our "happy" hormones and neurological pathways or we get horribly depressed and life feels like it's not worth living (interestingly we are not the only animals that suffer from depression) and we can't be having sex or eating ALL the time... so maybe "beauty" pathways and "fun" pathways have co-opted those other pathways to keep us happy more of the time. Because let's face it... unless you're in a flight or fight situation, stress is really NOT that great!
What do you think?
