It is important too that great art teaches us how real things can be
looked at and loved without being seized and used, without being
appropriated into the greedy organism of the self. This exercise of
detachment is difficult and valuable whether the thing contemplated
is a human being or the root of a tree or the vibration of a colour or
a sound. Unsentimental contemplation of nature exhibits the same
quality of detachment: selfish concerns vanish, nothing exists except
the things which are seen. Beauty is that which attracts this particular
sort of unselfish attention. It is obvious here what is the role,
for the artist or spectator, of exactness and objective vision: unsentimental,
detached, unselfish objective attention. It is also clear that
in moral situations a similar exactness is called for.
Tag: detachment
SAINTS
As soon as the snow melts the grass begins to grow. Even
though the daytime high is barely above freezing, even
though May is very like November, marsh marigolds bloom
in the swamp and the popple trees produce a faint green
that hangs under the low clouds like a haze over the valley.
This is the way the saints live, no complaints, no suspicion,
no surprise. If it rains, carry an umbrella, if it’s cold, wear
a jacket.LOUIS JENKINS
Little Bristling Soul 