The Incredible is Most Credible

The Incredible is Most Credible

Topic of Choice

November 16, 2015

As I rode my bike across the main stretch of campus this afternoon the sun was setting off in the distance, behind the clock tower at the far end of the great lawn. The stoic academic buildings seemed to have an aged, golden complexion to them. There were people walking around, all on a mission to reach a predetermined destination. I, however, had nothing on my mind and no place to go. I was simply riding my bike as a way of legitimizing doing nothing. In that idle moment of contentment and contemplation I found myself thinking, “this is unreal.” Moments later, it struck me odd that I choose to use the word “unreal” to describe the beautiful scene I was beholding. Upon further reflection, I realized that people are always making such exclamations about beauty. “That sunset is unreal!” “This campus is incredible?” “This moment is too good to be true!” Why is it our common response to beauty that we attribute such an experience or encountered object to falsehood? Martin Heidegger says that art is “the becoming and happening of truth.” Ironically, because beauty is the closest glimpse we have of reality we often mistake it for something unreal. Beauty catches us off guard. Our eyes have been dulled and our minds duped by the pseudo-realities of the marketplace. But every once in a while we encounter something that jolts us out of our passivity and awakens something in our soul. We would do well to recognize such happenings as a gracious window through which we may peer into reality. How much more aware and mindful we would be of beauty if, in such moments, our response became, “this is so real!”