The night sky here, out in the desert, is unlike anything I have ever seen. Our camp is in the shadows of a giant rock formation in the midst of the more bush-like area of Namibia. The safari here, based on the animals alone, is nothing special. The most interesting animal is the gemsbok – it has long, beautiful horns and a white face with an elegant black splash. Often it will stare at you amiably as you go by.
The desert itself is vast like nothing short of the ocean. The contrast of the sand with the clear blue sky is beautiful . . . it is overwhelming.
Nothing man-made approaches the Sublime quite like Nature. It pummels you into submission with its sheer scope . . . it is almost as if Koestler’s “shrug of eternity” surrounds you . . . your irrelevance becomes palpable.
Enough, enough! It is, like many things, a two-sided affair . . . you either let it pummel you or you can let it lift you up to its level . . . that is the beauty of the Sublime. That is where the Sublime ceases to be in the thing itself and begins to be a reflection of the state of your soul . . . that is where the Sublime can inspire rebirth instead of suicide.
I remember when father had me read the Abolition of Man. Lewis had some argument about how objects must merit certain reactions . . . that to say that every judgment is subjective will destroy any sense of order in culture, art, or morals . . . very well-argued I thought, and I was quite sympathetic to his points. But now I wonder . . . why this fear of subjectivity? Is not the order in our individual soul reflected (even captured!) in our reactions . . . well, certain things should still merit judgements . . . what I mean to say is that our deviance from the merited response is not something to be avoided, it is something to be examined and maybe even embraced. I can imagine father’s reaction to all this, “pseudo-psychological babble” he would say . . .
know true knowledge 