Movie: Merry Christmas

We saw "Merry Christmas", a French movie with English subtitle this afternoon. This is about a true event in the early days of WWI; a temporary truce was declared unofficially by the waring soldiers of Germany, Great Britain and France on the Christmas Eve of 1914. My wife and I were both moved by the humanity of the story.

Intrinsic value of beauty, happiness...

I've been thinking about the conversation I had with my son several days ago. It was about beauty, happiness and whether there is an intrinsic value which bounds them to all mankind. This morning I was walking along the creek path with my wife to her office and thought about it. I'd like to believe that there is an intrinsic foundation to what we call beauty and happiness. Without this we are left with subjective valuation for life and its meaning. 

My son believes that beauty and happiness are subjective and are given value by individuals. If indeed beauty and happiness are values shared universally then why they are defined so differently by different people and different cultures/societies. Many of us can't seem to understand the "... happiness and joy", shown by the relatives of an Iraqi grandmother blowing herself up to kill their enemies. This sentiment of "happiness and joy" is so foreign/bizarre to us; it defies a reasonable evolutionary biology explanation. 

If one accepts the 'martyrdom' of suicide bomber brings true happiness and beauty to some but abhorrence to others then there may be no intrinsic value to happiness nor beauty. However, the joy I had walking our dog in the autumn early morning seeing the beauty of the creek, the trees, birds, squirrels and the peaceful wonder of nature would seem to be desirable to all. It is hard to believe that some people would not enjoy the simple pleasure of mindful walking, secure and contemplative upon the quiet beauty of this autumn morning walk.