Trading Skyscrapers for Mountains - Aesthetics and Relativity

One month ago, I would stand up in my desk, and peer out over the Chicago River, seeing a mix of high rise buildings of downtown Chicago’s Loop. Right now, I stand up in my desk, peering North of Boise a bit, and I see the foothills North of Boise. There is something to be said for the aesthetic of the West and the “Golden Hours” here in the West. “Golden Hour,” as I understand the expression, is a phrase spawned from cinematography. I know Terrence Malik prefers only to film during “Golden Hour” as the light works best with the cameras. If one were to Wikipedia “Golden Hour” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hour_%28photography%29), they would find that these hours are the first following dawn and the last prior to dusk.

With work, I have been getting here prior to sunrise, and leaving just following sunset. From my desk, when I stand, I see the “foothills,” I think in the Midwest we would call these “foothills” “small mountains,” diffused of light cascading and undulating around the rises and falls of the land. This is the scene I get from my office these days. I reckon that it has more to do with where one is at with their life. I say that, in that many think the idea of a massive city is about as beautiful as it gets. Chicago, like London, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney or Dubai, is known for its skyline and its aesthetic predicated off of its landmarks. I am quite certain that there is a twenty-two-year-old recent graduate from a Big Ten University who awakens in the morning thinking the same thing about the Loop, and how they are so excited to be in the “big city” away from their small farm town in some Midwestern state.

I guess at the net of it, that is one thing we can say about ourselves, aesthetics and their appreciation is something entirely relative. This relativity is predicated from personal experience, education and desensitization. I don’t think I am espousing anything we have all thought before, but methinks it takes a phase of change and transformation to appreciate these things.