The Christian Vanguard

I saw a little girl on the beach throwing rocks into the ocean. She looked back at her parents for approval, while they cheered her on, telling her what a good job she was doing. This seemingly pointless endeavor was the cause of much joy and amusement. It reminds me of the view of art that art is useless, to take away its unduly emphasis on its utility. Roger Scruton makes a point that if in creating (in something like architecture) you put a things utility first with no regard to its aesthetic worth, it will become useless, because no one wants any part in something that is so ugly. When something is beautiful, then people want to participate in that beauty. Throwing rocks into the water seems to be like one of those things that is completely pointless and has have no utility, but because there is something beautiful about it, we want to do it anyways. It's a gratifying paradox. That children do this more than adults I think clues us into some of the aspects of throwing rocks ...

Not being in school at the moment, I find myself with a bit more leisure time. I've taken up water coloring. I want to take up sailing again. Having lived in a beach city all my life, I was no stranger to boats. I remember when I was about nine or so, my dad took me on this trip on a replica pirate ship. We went out about a mile from shore, and passed by two other pirate ships filled and manned by actors in pirate costume, with loud but hollow bangs from their canons, and pirates swinging from their mast onto the other ships, and do sword fights. It captured my young minds imagination. I tried reading Treasure Island after that, but didn't get past half way.  For the more adult among us, the late great William F. Buckley Jr. wrote an entertaining trilogy of his sailing adventures.  Something about the sea and being on a ship captures many people's imagination. You don't see many children on sea, but rather grown men, and grown men having fun (although, I was told rece...