What Is The Most Beautiful 'Thing' In The World?

Piece and quiet, sitting in a lovely garden.

Watching the birth of one of your children takes some beating.

George.

Difficult to answer, I dont know about the "most beautiful" but something that completely took my breath away was Michelangelo,s sculpture of David.

I was working in Florence a few years back and I went to see it and just couldnt believe what I was seeing. It is 17 feet tall and the detail is beyond belief and to consider this was carved from the solid with hammers and chisels over 500 years ago. I stood looking at it and my mind wouldnt stop thinking how could a man do this..?

I know Michelangelo was considered a true genius and when you stand in front of the sculpture of David there is no doubting that to be true.

As an exercise in needless horror and pain that caused flashbacks followed by panic attacks, the birth of my two couldn't be bettered. A pleasurable or beautiful one was the last thing to describe it. Seeing my wife turn into a mindless being trying to climb the walls while bleeding seriously to get away from the unbearable pain is a sight that will stay with me forever. That would describe being present for the birth of my two. How I wished for the days when blokes were kept well away from the birth. First brat was 10lb 2 oz and the medics believed she was small despite the ultrasound scans - and they obviously knew better - so no need for much pain relief in a natural birth. The birth process at Medway was characterized by medical arrogance of the first water from start to finish and it was a thoroughly horrible experience.

Regards,

Richard.

The most beautiful thing that I can remember was one day early in May 1960, sailing into Hong Kong harbour through the early morning mists, just as the dawn was breaking, and seeing Kowloon and Victoria spread in front of us, it seemed to have an air of magic about it. My impression of Hong Kong then was a truly magical place, no doubt my dream would be shattered if I went back now.

Dave W

My first love. Rebecca. Nothing beats that feeling where your heart beats out of your chest when you see her. After that probably a Spitfire at full tilt, and then a cold pint after a long walk!

Two beautiful Red Setters in full flight across a green field !

You,ve never seen it ? You dont know what you,re missing !

Second best A bottle of good red wine,and a friend to share it with !

Two beautiful Red Setters in full flight across a green field ! You,ve never seen it ? You dont know what you,re missing !

Second might be a bottle of good ed wine and a friend to share it with

Third might be a clean part off !

No 1 Can get this anytime

No 2 Now and then..

No 3 Once in a while if I,m lucky !

I know what you mean Larry - I have the same effect on women...

the birth of both my sons.

Followed very closely by the pure , trusting gaze of my faithful dog.

The view from the White Horse above Thirsk on summers morning through the mist takes some beating too.

Ian

It must be difficult to pick a winner but it's going to be something created by nature and not by man. We are surrounded by magnificent creations of nature so let's enjoy them before we succeed in destroying them all.

Mike

"Mutual, unconditional love". Not sure it is universally accepted as No.1. The Buddhists speak of "loving kindness" and the closely allied "compassion", neither of which is a perfect translation of the original Pali terms, apparently. But in their eyes, requiring the feeling to be mutual is a form of attachment, which is the source of unhappiness (also not a perfect translation of the original Pali, apparently.) So maybe just "unconditional love"?

Heavy stuff, maaan. As Neil from the Young Ones would say. More manageable maybe, mankind's greatest invention. The one thing that made the wheel and IC engine possible? Maybe fire. But that was a harnessing of a natural phenomenon rather than an invention. From a utilitarian point of view, the greatest invention would be the one that has done the greatest good. What would that be? Modern drugs such as antibiotics and vaccinations that have saved countless millions of lives? The Green Revolution of high-yield, disease and pest resistant crop strains combined with modern fertilizers that saved millions from starvation in Asia in the 1960s-70s?

Or was it the animal-drawn plough that allowed the agricultural revolution of 6,000 years ago that enabled the civilization of the Northern Hemisphere? Gave the city dwellers the wealth and leisure time to pursue arts, philosophy, science, education, medicine and the like, including democracy. One theory is that today's high poverty level in most of the Southern Hemisphere goes back to the lack of any kind of native beast of burden to haul ploughs or carts. So the invention that made the difference between the life of the average person in Europe today and the life of the average person in most of Africa, for example, is certainly pretty great.

ISTR at the turn of the millenium, Caxton's printing press was lauded by the media as the greatest invention of the past millenium, bringing the spread of knowledge and education through books at a scale hitherto unseen. But the media may have had its own biases about the importance of the dissemination of information, clouded by the big enthusiasms everyone had for the internet at that time.

Crawled out of bed to go on watch after we had anchored during the night somewhere off Yugoslavia in the 1980s

Stumbled onto bridge and onto bridge wing before coffee number one

We were in a perfect bay, on a perfect morning, tiny warm breeze, steep green hills, sea flat and blue, you could only marvel at it

Never forgot that 5 minutes, 35 years ago

Is Mick taking the Mick?

I had a similar experience visiting a ship in Portland Harbour. Crisp sunny day and the water was Mediterranean blue, it was breathtaking.

Mentioning Canaletto to a crusty nautical professional, he looked at me and said: 'Dave, if God was going to give England an enema, this is where he'd put the hose'.

Beauty must surely be in the eye of the beholder!

Dave

Well, I certainly was. I think this thread's a mind game.

Depends on what you see as the source of the problem.

Getting back to the Buddhists, they might argue the source is desire. Poor Africans desire food to eat and money to buy basic essentials like food, clothing, school for their kids etc. Wealthy Chinese, and others, desire ivory as a decoration, talisman, perceived medicine etc. Plenty of middlemen to jump in to bring those desires together, while fulfilling their own desire for a cut of the profit along the way.

What's your plan to eliminate human desire? Good luck with that one.

(Of course, the Buddhists also say the greatest thing in the world is nirvana: the cessation of all desire. But so far those who have achieved it are few and far between from what I understand.)

Edited By Hopper on 06/08/2018 11:19:16

I smell 'consultant' codswallop!

A discussion akin to the nonsensical standard - 'what can you make with paper clips?' opening gambit.

de Bono has a lot to answer for with his 'lateral thinking' nonsense! To anyone with even half a working brain, 'lateral thinking' is nothing more or less than commonsense - a commodity in desperately short supply nowadays. Possibly the worst utterance from those indulging in this sort of philosophy is "We all" If I were ever to subscribe to 'We all' tenets, I would hope someone would put me down and dispose of the remains!!

It may be a pretty poor example, but the 'I' in individual has a significance beyond correct spelling

rgds

Bill

Bill,

Bad news - put your affairs in order.

You said: 'If I were ever to subscribe to 'We all' tenets, I would hope someone would put me down and dispose of the remains!!'

Unfortunately you also said: 'To anyone with even half a working brain...' This fully meets your criterion for self-extermination. It's common sense, 'we all' and 'anyone' are identical. If you can name anyone on the forum who doesn't have half a working brain I might allow a reprieve.

Dave

PS Otherwise, I agree with your objection to 'We all' thinking. I also agree with Mick that shooting elephants for ivory is shameful.

So do I, in today's world; but there was a time when such sentiments would've been regarded as sanctimonious - when elephants were plentiful, frequently damaging to human agriculture and occasionally to communities, and several significant components for what was regarded as civilised life, such as piano keys and chessmen, didn't have such ready alternative materials to ivory as they do now. Hunting elephants for ivory was not regarded much differently to slaughtering cattle for shoeleather.

That's another qualification that's needed for 'We all' thinking - time context.