ThirstyFish

The photo in the photo is of a Banksy mural.

Life is what it is. And, whether "Life is Beautiful" or not depends on your perspective.

Chris Hedges, in his article "The Myth of Human Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies" quotes Friedrich Nietzsche in "Beyond Good And Evil" [Section 59]: "Only a few people have the fortitude to look in times of distress into what he calls the molten pit of human reality. Most studiously ignore the pit. Artists and philosophers, for Nietzsche, are consumed, however, by an insatiable curiosity, a quest for truth and desire for meaning. They venture down into the bowels of the molten pit. They get as close as they can before the flames and heat drive them back. This intellectual and moral honesty, Nietzsche wrote, comes with a cost. Those singed by the fire of reality become "burnt children", he wrote, eternal orphans in empires of illusion".

Is Nietzsche right? Is that the end? Do those courageous enough to venture into the molten pit of Reality always come out as "burnt children" or "eternal orphans"? A slightly different perspective:

• I would love to kiss you [The Truth].
• The price of kissing is your life.
• Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
• What a bargain, let's buy it.
• -- Excerpt from "The Essential Rumi"