There is something about the past, isn't there? I am a student, and a lover, of history and I've never been quite sure why. I had guessed it had something to do with the lessons one could learn from the past, and also something to do with wanting to understand concepts such as virtue, courage and innovation. Then it hit me. The thing which draws me to history more than anything else, I think, is elegance.
After this revelation, I started thinking. It turns out that many of my interests and passions are of things that are suprisingly elegant in different ways. Despite their differences, I think it is the elegance that calls to me. In history, the things that I love to study the most are among history's more elegant moments. Bismark pulling the strings of Europe to unite Germany in the 1860's and 70's, Nelson's brilliance at Trafalger in 1805, the construction of so many of the world's wonders which are stunning in their simplicity (the pyramids, the Great Wall, Albert Speer's planned Berlin), the list goes on. Even Nazi Germany, a towering monument of evil, was evil with style, and the elegance of their early campaigns, the blitzkrieg etc, is only rarely challenged in the long history of civilization. This makes it fascinating to study.
Elegance is closely tied to efficiency, which I had previously known to be something I aspire to. For something to be beyond the normal level of efficiency there is a necessary element of elegance to it. Branching out from history, there are a myriad of other examples where elegance underlies my passion for something. In film, the films that I consider truly great express a mountain of detail and intrigue in a simple, dare I say elegant, sort of way. Chariots of Fire is one of the most refined movies I have ever seen, Star Wars gives us a picture of an entire, fabulously detailed galaxy silloutted against the backdrop of a very simple tale of a fall from grace and subsequent salvation and Casablanca, well, there is no word that describes it better than elegant.
The same is true of the Lord of the Rings. Those books are written magnificently (aside from about 200 pages in Fellowship) because they express so much detail and grandeur in mere words. Elegance in writing and speaking is called eloquence, and that too, has always be something I have striven to achieve. To give further examples, sailing is a tremedously elegant endeavour and I think that is why it so interests me.
The men, fictional and real, who I strive to emulate, live their lives with tremendous elegance. Three of the fictional are Thrawn, Thomas Crown and Jack McCoy. The cars I like are expressions of elegance, just take a look at the Aston Martin DB9. Sports? Track is the simplest of all of them, and watching El Guerrouj unleash a 300m kick to defeat Lagat is like watching elegance in motion. Soccer is called "The Beautiful Game" for a reason. Many other sports too, can be elegant and that is one of the reasons I love them. Macs? I don't even have to say it. Even in a relationship sense..the most beautiful women are always elegant. Romance itself, in its purest form, is certainly an elegant art. This revelation thrilled me, but also filled me with a little disappointment. I think the world is losing its elegance. Much of the modern world is complicated, convoluted and fragmented. I have few present-day heroes, I think in part because men lack the eloquence of their forebearers. It always irks me a little to read a poorly written email or novel or paper, even if it effectively conveys its message. Similarly, the key ingredient of good music is an ability to convey knowledge, ideas and emotions in a beautiful way. I feel as if that has become rarer over the years. Wow. This is a cool line of thought. And the beauty of this idea is that it is very all-encompassing, and extremely simple. Dare I say that it's quite an elegant explanation for a big part of who I am?
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