Sahar Chalabi

Sahar Chalabi

An Attempt at Beauty

I find it a bit ironic, how nothing but extreme, suicidal desperation can push us to try our hardest to live. And I find it a bit ironic how my mind, had to go against its own reason to keep me alive.

The only way, I thought, to avoid my disgust with the futility of life and the animalistic core of human nature was to rationalize every single thing I did, felt, thought, and loved. I thought that would close the gaps of madness in my world, which allowed it to crash easily.

But my disgust only grew bigger, swallowing every meaning I could come up with for beauty… because beauty was madness. Until her.

Five months ago, I was still struggling to define art, along with a few other concepts, that I hoped I could hold on to life for.

I asked her, and she talked about it for a bit of time.

When that ephemeral moment passed, I realized that what stuck to me the hardest, so much that it had blended into me, was her; and the terrifyingly beautiful side of human madness I saw through her being.

She was so beautiful; I wanted to be like her.

She was so beautiful, looking around her and indirectly into herself, and seeing art.

She was so beautiful, pointing at the little fountain distorting the carpet under it that was not resisting, and saying that that could be art.

She was so beautiful, pointing to the photographer, walking from and to the table, and saying that that could be a dance, a form of art.

She was so beautiful, looking at things and seeing their potential, which was really, an extension of who she was. That was an expression she used, describing art.

I wanted to be beautiful, like her; and I was willing to give my rationalism up for that, or at least try.

I also needed to embrace my madness, if I wanted to live; and I wanted to, more than anything.

The art of living, I came to realize, consists in trusting in the illusions that only work when we do so.