The Beast Within a Beauty

It’s shape is of evolution with it’s origins in it’s thoughts.

It’s sound is of the roar of the soldiers that fought for it’s road.

It’s aggressive look is of the look we earned.

It’s power is of the strength that we possess.

It’s speed is of our lifestyle.

It’s name is of what we do.

It’s what it means to be sublime.

-2017 Dodge Challenger

Sunrise always represents the hope and the future. The human being lives as the sun rising. As the theme in the Romantic Period, poet, and artist using art and poem to express their love of life, the hope of future. Sunrise was also the symbol of hope in many works.

I am a person who loves nature, and life. When 2017 comes, my girlfriend and I decided to welcome the first sunrise of 2017. We drove down to Stanley Island at the early morning on Jan. 1^st, 2017. At 6:30 in the morning we were already, on the beach, waiting for the sun to rise. First, a bit of pale ray appeared in the east, then it became brighter and brighter. An orange top of a cap rose little by little from the sea. Suddenly, the sun sprang out of the seawater, looking like a large elliptic ball, and the sky in the east became red. Later, the sun was hidden behind a piece of cloud. When it appeared again, the sun changed from red to bright red, then to golden. As it rose, it became silvery white and shone out. The light was so intense that we couldn’t look at it directly. At that time, the whole sea was in the golden sunlight. We were impressed by the beauty. When the sun shined on my face, I smell the hope of the new year. I made my wish for the future, and I will greet each day with hope and love.

In my daily life, I have the sense of sublime when I saw people doing something that seem trivial but for the convenience of people and when I saw the glorious nature landscape. This is the concept of the sublime as I have experienced it in my daily life. I often saw the New York Subway went wrong because it is old and huge and the maintenance workers would fix the problem soon; I was shocked by the professionalism and hard work of subway maintenance workers. Someone may say that this is just their duty, but, I think the subway may be worse without them. I often saw the police directed traffic at the crossroads. Even in a heavy snow condition, the police still direct the traffic. Without their work, people won’t have a safe and convenience life. I am really shocked by these trivial but important things. I was astonished by glorious nature landscape too. Even you see the pictures; you can be astonished by its wonderful scenery. You will imagine how to create these beautiful and spectacular scenes in the nature, and then you will concentrate on thing about this issue. Yes, these magnificent scenes are created by nature. At last, you will be shocked by nature’s work. Just like this sentence, “In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. (Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (excerpt))” The nature is the most amazing and the most shocking.

To me, food provides the best experience and concept of sublime. When I say food, I’m not just talking about one culture of food; I’m talking about all kinds. Trying out foods that are culturally different from what I normally eat is the best way to experience sublime.

Recently, I went to a Brazilian steakhouse called Churrascaria Plataforma, located on 49th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenue. The tenderness of the steaks and its savory flavor that comes out of the meat as I chewed on it was breath taking. The meal was a buffet type meal in which you can eat all the meat you want till you’re full; what’s best, was that choice of meat consisted of: sirloin, rib eye, steak, filet mignon, pork ribs, sausages, and lamb.

The best meat I tried was sirloin, cooked medium rare. As the sirloin entered my mouth, I could not contain the excitement of eating something that I did not image would be so delicious. The mixture of spices and taste of meat made me feel not only euphoric but also impatient to ask for more.

I do hope that readers of this response knows how you feel when you eat something really delicious. In this response, I might be talking about the taste of food that brings about the experience of sublime, but, we, humans, know that just by looking at delicious food is enough to activate the feeling of sublime.

So, to all who reads this response, feast your eyes upon the deliciousness and experience the sense of sublime I felt myself as I laid my own eyes upon them.

A sense of inspiration or state of awe does not occur to me very often when seeing a certain place or being in a specific moment. However, my idea of sublime is associated with people, the highest form of admiration and excellence i have experienced is through the way i have seen and heard stories of different people. Reading biographies and hearing the news about certain people such as Malala Yousafzai, Bernie Sanders, or even when seeing the hundreds of women fighting for their rights against the recent acts on abortion give me a sense of sublime.

People don’t know the power that they hold and when i encounter those that use their voices to spread change through out the world it inspires me to find my voice as well. The individuals that come together to fight for something they believe in unifies the world in a way and allows humans to feel closer to one another over the shared interest of the rights that they deserve. When witnessing the drive and motivation that people hold inside them it allows me to find my ambitions and induces me to act upon my goals with a sense of determination.

Even people like my friends and my family have made me experience a sense of sublime towards them. I believe that any individual has the power to inspire somebody and that this advantage should be acted upon whenever felt necessary. The world requires change everyday especially since 1/20/17 and its important for everyone to come together and create a sensation of sublime for others who need yet to be inspired.

When I moved from my home country, I’d cry many nights pondering on the thought, should I go back home or should I stay. Nothing takes your breath away like the thought of sitting alone and watching the sunset in your front yard or going to the beaches and watch as the calm- soothing red water stares at the sky.  You don’t understand it until you have felt it.

I’ve missed home so much until I went back last year and craved to come back. It was sad to see how my country struggles with a lot of human-created disasters, domestic violence, child abuse, animal abuse, robberies, murders, and much more. I know all country suffers from these, but with a population of less than a million, you couldn’t understand the pressure it puts on the good people there.

But in all that I still had a moment of sublime, where my breath was taken away, where I did not care about all those evils in the world, I only saw the moment as it was because it involved the people that matter most, “family”.

Three years ago, if I’d look out my window every night I’d see a circle of palm trees standing tall by the short houses of neighbors I see every day while coming home. Today, outside my window I see bright lights and tall buildings and numerous people walking pass all in a hurry. After moving to New York City from Southern California three years ago.I experienced the concept of the sublime in my daily adventures around the city that never sleeps. Besides the beautiful and advanced architecture that the city has to offer, is the nature of the weather over here on the east coast. The first snow that I experienced in the city really put me at great admiration and inspired me to travel the world and explore as much as I can. One day in the middle of December 2014 I was on my way out of a Japanese bookstore located around Times Square. As I walked out of the store, I saw snow flakes falling on my big fluffy coat that didn’t melt off for a good half minute. In the air, the snowflakes fell so slowly it seemed as if someone put a pause on me and everyone around. I could see every snowflake itself stuck in the air around me. This experience left me in excitement and comfort despite the cold wind that blew. It was beautiful to me because back home in Long Beach, California I wouldn’t be able to see fresh snow that fell from the sky. I’m normally not a person with good memory but from that day I can remember it as if I had the photographic memory. From that day on, I’ve always been trying to capture as many snow days in the city as possible. 

Although there have been many times where I have come face to face with the sublime in my daily life, the feeling of extreme awe and wonder that I felt when walking down the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, California.  This was the first time that I had ever been off the East Coast so because of that almost everything I saw I thought to be amazing and superior to everything here in New York.  However when we got to the pier and I looked up and to my right, I saw THE most beautiful sight I have ever seen still to this day.  I have seen a beach before and I have seen mountains before but to see them together, coexisting in the same environment, literally blew my mind.  The beauty was absolutely breath-taking, I walked down the boardwalk fixated on my view, still unable to comprehend how nature could be so gentle yet untamed at the same time.  Whenever I look back at the pictures I took of this view I almost tear up because of how lucky I was to be able to witness a view that I could only imagine would be fit for a super-natural being.

What do you pop up in your head when you think of California? Many words like warm weather, beach, road trip, freedom, and great natural landscape can describe California. I visited California during last winter break. I had never been to the West so the trip made me look forward to being excited a lot. I’ve lived in New York for about 1 year. Whenever I walk around New York City at night, I feel like loving New York. The night of NYC is made of people from over the world, tall buildings, lighting, and noise. It makes me feel like the world is always doing something and never gonna stop it. Of course, the day of NYC is beautiful. On the other hand, the West is a little bit different. I visited Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. But I don’t want to talk about these cities. I would like to tell you about my road trip from Los Angeles to San Fransisco. The road trip was not our original plan which I and my friend expected. Actually, we did not make any plan before arriving at California. (I recommend you to go to trip without any plans with your best friend, which will make you have more fun and you can never forget it in your life). We rented an open roof car and then began driving to San Fransisco. Let’s imagine. this road trip is your first time. You are on California State Route 1 with your best. You are driving now and you can feel the wind because your car is an open roof car. Also, you are watching the beautiful endless beach. One more thing is you are listening music which can make you high. Everything is perfect, isn’t it? I think that It can be called the sublime. Endless beach, roads, and bright blue sky are parts of sublime. However, I would like to say that sublime can be depicted according to our feeling at that time. I realized what feeling is of release stress. If I feel bad, I will not catch and know the sublime. If you feel good, I will be very impressed by small thing even though other people don’t agree with me. From now, I will try to catch where is the sublime around me. Whenever I find it, my life will be more thankful.