| Sports |
by Dr MICHAEL
UNAGE
Beauty, a key to development
ALL development processes aim at achieving
quality of life. Nonetheless, quality of life cannot be desired unless
people develop within them the sense of appreciating beauty. In fact,
only the beauty radiating from within the human person can account for
authentic development. This inner radiance helps people to appreciate
the beauty in the natural environment, the cultural and artistic
creations, and including technological transformation.
To initiate authentic development, a basic education in appreciating
beauty is necessary.
Even Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, says that the aim of all
education is to teach us to love beauty. If we, for the moment agree
with Plato that the aim of all education is to love beauty, we can now
concur that any education towards development should teach us to love
beauty.
If education is given to love beauty, it will, of course, bring
enrichment to the human soul.
There are many aspects regarding our development as human persons, our
community and our physical environment.
We normally speak in terms of economic, social, physical, moral,
spiritual and personal development. When we think of all these
developments holistically, we usually use the term integral human
development.
Without going into details of each aspects of development, we can simply
divide development into two general and complementary aspects. We call
them interior and exterior developments of the human person.
The exterior development refers to all the external and physical
developments that have taken place around us.
When we speak of interior development, we normally talk of the
developments that have taken place in our characters and in our
attitudes, such as moral, spiritual and personal development.
Lately, we are informed that interior developments are as necessary as
physical and economic developments for the appreciation and
sustainability of any developmental projects all around the world. We
would contend that the development of the interior person is prior and
prerequisite for any exterior form of physical and material development.
Indeed, an unknown author claimed that “if there is right in the soul,
there will be beauty in the person; there will be harmony in the home;
and, if there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation
and if there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world”.
The one necessary question in our minds now is how we can enhance this
interior development that is prior and conducive to any socio-economic
development.
To be more practical in that ideal, I would like to use a recent example
in the Simbu province.
There was a group of young people from Wara-Tamba, a notorious section
on the Simbu highway best know for holdups, who decided to convert the
place into a scene of beauty.
The youths cleared the drains and planted flowers some metres away from
the highway that gave a sight of beauty to those who travelled on the
highway. This transformation of the physical environment did have a
deeper psychological and emotional change within the travelling public.
From what was seen as elephant grass and overgrowth, delightful flowers
and colourful vines sprung up; from what used to cause fear and
apprehension, joy and a new breath of freedom was induced.
If we can transform what is ugly and bad in us and in our environment to
what is good and beautiful, we are in for the enrichment of the interior
person. The interior enrichment of the individual will then be the agent
for all aspect of genuine growth.
Aesthetic sensitivity simply speaks of how we appreciate beauty in
ourselves, in other people, in all the things in our environment, in the
different forms of cultural arts, and in technological creativity.
The appreciation of beauty in us and in others around us will be the
foundation for the idea of development.
Beauty, after all, is not a concept, but something that we meet in real
experience.
We are fascinated by the very harmony, proportion and organisational
integrity of the things we see around us. Thus, beauty has the power to
fascinate and convince us, because the joy it arouses in us is based on
something of the ultimate truth and goodness of nature, which becomes
visible and communicates itself to us.
The absence of aesthetic sensitivity will result in the impoverishment
of the soul. Thus, we see the degradation of the urban landscape, the
ruthless destruction of nature, the spread of obscenity, the increase in
boredom, the industry of bad taste, and the idolisation of the
superficial.
However, the deeper consequences within us are more difficult to
pinpoint. If we are blind to beauty or find that we lack developing an
aesthetic sensitivity, it will be detrimental to our own possibilities
for survival, or at least for decent human living.
As we have seen all over the world, technological development does
enhance people’s lives; it makes life more convenient. But at the same
time technology has destroyed and impoverished people’s lives, creating
boredom and impoverishment to the interior person.
The mystery of beauty should be the union of outward form and inner,
mysterious radiance and should be guarded against all false impressions
of beauty that springs from an impoverished soul. Without a deep sense
of aestheticism, natural and eternal beauty would be substituted for
temporal and superficial beauty. Without this basic education in beauty,
ugliness will be endemic.
Aesthetic sensitivity and the enrichment of the interior person would
lead to a healthy self-esteem. It will remove the bus kanaka syndrome.
It will overcome laziness and will help people to do something to
beautify themselves. They will clean their houses, weed their gardens,
keep their coffee gardens clean, repair their roads and beautify their
villages. It will enhance the idea of hygiene and health, in which
toilets are kept clean, plates and cups are washed regularly, new
clothes are bought, and money would be well used to enhance the living
conditions.
With the development of aesthetic sensitivity, some activities would
necessarily cease, such as abuse of alcohol and marijuana, laziness,
vandalism of public property and exploitation of the physical
environment.
Aesthetic sensitivity guards exploitation in development and directs the
way for true development.
A day will come when our people will develop aesthetic sensitivity. It
will be the time when this country will be on the true track for
development. Governments wishing to develop Papua New Guinea would have
to undertake an extensive educational programme in aesthetic
sensitivity.
 
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