Letter From Croatia: Beauty Isn't Truth

I
t's disconcerting to be in a place of great, even astonishing beauty like The Dalmatian Coast. Rather than affording pleasure, it can be disconsonant with one's inner being. The bar is set too high and the attempt to bridge the gap between what is going on inside the mind and what is happening in reality starts to feel like a rebuke. You feel lesser than the sites and sounds of the dazzling islands with their crystal clear waters and you begin to long for a more tumultuous setting, say an industrial park or war zone, which more aptly reflect your inner state. Not fitting in to the surroundings you feel like an angry exile, like a high school delinquent who, as they say, marches to the beat of a different drummer, and feels so much an outsider that he or she can't develop the school spirit that derives from a sense of belonging. You decide that this is not your time and that some day you will return more prepared for paradise. But when? When you are about to knock on death's door? The garden is dying. Age is inversely proportional to that point of life in which the body and soul begin to flower. In essence you can't retire to paradise since retirement is hell.

{This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, culture and art}

(photo from The Homeland War in Croatia)