June 2, 2004
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I went to the New York Aquarium today with two books. I sat near the sharks, the walruses, and then the food and read. This Wolterstorff book is difficult but turning out to be really good. He writes about how art serves many different purposes–some intended and some not, some controlled by outsiders and some not–and that the dominant purpose in the West for art is aesthetic contemplation. This is generally what we mean when we say “enjoying art for its own sake”–we’re getting satisfaction just from directly experiencing it. I remembered today how there is something like that in the act of learning. I mean, why do we enjoy learning stuff at museums and aquariums, stuff we can’t use and mostly stuff we can’t even apply to other things we think about? Why the hell should I care that frogs don’t drink but instead absorb water through their skin? School can be so overwhelming and our studies so complex that I forget that learning stuff I didn’t know can be pleasurable.
