If donkeys slept on satin sheets

there is an old arab proverb i’ve come across once: if we get what we deserve only rom our hard work, donkeys would sleep on satin sheets.

much beauty, much success, and equally so-much ugliness and failure are not a result of actual effort, struggle or pain. the world was not created with equality or fairness in it. the jury is still out if there’s even any justice in it.

i listen to beethoven, or john coltrane, and know with certainty that i will never create anythung equally beautiful.i live with the knowledge that such a feat of perfection is just nor within my grasp and never will be.

i can try my best, as we all should to both appreciate beauty and contribute to it, if at all possible.

both genius that i mentioned,were actually known for their unrelenting pursuit of beauty. each in his own way went to extremes in this search, and to some degree or another paid a great price for it. consider also, that there were some foul-ups, some setbacks , that would have disparaged many, but not them. so effort plays a part in beauty, but what of other forms of beauty?

a flower will sacrifice much of it’s resources for the sake of producing a flower. so does a butterfly, a spider weaving his web, a tree bursting into bloom. it all requires sacrifice and effort.

nothing will come out of nothing. there is no product without the materials to create it.

but is the actual effort that the flower puts in, the pain of producing, a component of the beauty?

it is not. donkeys on bedsheets again.

saying the opposite is dangerous both logically and morally.

what of all the beauty in the world that is not aquired through our effort?

what of all the effort and struggle that produce NO beauty at all? how about the effort to produce ugliness. even that doesn’t come easily at times.

would we be selfish in enjoying the beauty made by others, while doing nothing ourselves?

should we destroy or marginalize much of this world, because it came of it’s own?

will we let those donkeys on the bed even?