Bottom post of the previous page:
This one is not really about the weather. It depicts the turmoil of the composer's soul. Two sides to the sublime, in nature. One external, one internal. Both are of unsurpassable beauty, but only one is truly art. So, art is artificial. A human construct. But it is inspired by nature, and thus a part of nature, of the very Cosmos. It is a thing dictated by various intricate chemical brain-based processes by another, greater, power. This is the paradox of paradoxes. And the answer is, there is no true distinction between beauty in nature and art, and even spiritual human affairs of the most subjective kind, are only part of the endless, meaningless eternity, within which all things exist, or have existed, at one time or another, forever. There is no paradox. Art is nature, nature is sublime, and the sublime, simply is. But the human mind adores romanticism, because it enables, and fuels, the cognitive dissonance, particular to our species. We will lie about EVERYTHING, if it suits our temperament, even for the shortest of whiles. Cowards as we are, we automatically attack that which we do not understand, merely because it defies our feeling of superiority, whether inside the herd mentality, or on the personal level. A rather pompous way of saying we suck, but we do. Our only common trait, is our instinctive fear of the unknown. Only the pastoral will do, as the sublime makes us uncomfortable. This is what Nietzsche meant, about gazing into the abyss. It is not the idea of the boogeyman in the dark, as an outside sinister force, it's the unwillingness to see our own nothingimage, reflected by the mirror of the soul.
So we invent witches and sabbaths, senile popes, crosses, and flying hags on brooms. The human condition is one of shameful alibi. Of cognitive dissonance. The mind has invented ways of shutting off the reflection of the abyss. We will never progress beyond that point, we will only adjust, to suit ourselves. "A man's got to know his limitations", as Dirty Harry said.
And so he shall, the little universal irrelevancy that he is. Stephen Hawking was a sentimental old romantic, at heart.
Enjoy the weather!