2005— International Winner

Michael Czerwinski, Finland

Truth or Beauty?

Maybe it's just me, but it seems as if there is a striking similarity between truth and beauty. I ask myself once more what must be done in order to realize truth or beauty. A conscious or subconscious cognitive process occurs in each of us when we are sensing or proving something to be beautiful or true. The beauty or truth that is being perceived by the individual must fit perfectly, in that given moment, somewhere in the structure of their mind for them to know what they are sensing to be true or beautiful. Sure, something can be true and someone won't believe it, but for them to know that it is true they must believe it. In other words, it must be realized. It must bridge the gap between that which exists and that which yet does not. For example: Can a person realize the beauty of a sunset without having realized anything before? Can a person realize, or understand that 1 + 1 = 2 without having an existent, if only simple understanding of mathematics? As wealth generates wealth, so does beauty generate beauty and truth - truth. Is our ability to realize that we are realizing not a key difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom?

In the course of my seventeen years, I have lived one year in Mali, five in Rome, four in China, four in Egypt, one in Canada, and am now finishing my second in Russia. I have enjoyed this intense cultural assimilation for it has infinitely broadened my horizons and, more importantly, taught me the important lesson of balance in all things. It is this balance that would prevent me from answering the question. I am mostly a truth seeker, but not entirely so. I tend to switch between the beauty inherent in subjective or objective truth and that personal truth that makes something beautiful. No matter what, though, there will be someone out there, for better or worse, who will go against the grain. I believe nothing is universal except the exception.

The fundamental drive behind my entire being is the search for absolute truth. To properly do this I believe I must experience. I don't think there is one area of life that contains the truth. I believe the truth is life. And to properly qualify life I must experience it. I tend to side with Eastern thought in believing that the mystery leads inwards; that the only absolute truth is within us because we are all manifestations of the universe. I believe physicists are wrong in believing a universal theory involves only physics. A universal theory means exactly what it says, a universal theory.

I believe that truth and beauty share a fundamental significance - the process of being realized. Truth is more important to me, but only because beauty is true. How can it be false? Beauty occupies a space in my head, space is filled with energy, and energy is true.

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