Please don’t tell me about the
Evolutionary roots of appreciating beauty
Don’t try to dissect it for me
I’m sure there are good scientific reasons
Why we are drawn to beauty
But I don’t want to know those, not me!

I want it to be a feeling
A feeling of bliss that overcomes me
When I look at beautiful art
A warm feeling and a smile
When I listen to someone playing guitar

Please, let’s not analyze beauty
Let’s not make it part of the
Evolutionary theory of life

I’d like our love of beauty
To be mysterious, yet obvious
And not by diagrams defined

Appreciating beauty may have
Something to do with our survival
As a species
But I’d like to think of it
As essential to the life of our spirit
That’s how I see it

Lida Berghuis
December 28th, 2010

A response to Denis Dutton’s
A Darwinian theory of beauty