"Life is Beautiful"

A great movie. It's a marvel how some people can conjure up hope and laughter out of the most depressing circumstances in life. It's an art. A skill. A survival weapon.

Within the past couple years, I've come to believe in beauty in simplicity. And life is beautiful, because it is simple. It really is quite simple, contrary to what most people think, if we're willing to look past all the wrapping papers into the core. Trouble comes when we complicate things, when people read between the lines, when mind games roll around in political circles...

I don't want to end up being one of the zillion people who bustle about all their lives without stopping by to admire the beauty in life. I'd like to grow together with this beauty, rather than apart from it. It probably comes easily to some people, being able to see beauty in the simplest things, I mean. For me, I had to learn it like a skill...except that I didn't know I was working on this skill until a couple of years ago. Again, pain is good. If it wasn't for all the "bad" things that happened, I wouldn't have tried squinting my eyes so hard to catch a glimpse of what good was left.

And what's at the core of life? What keeps things simple and imparts beauty into life? Is it faith, hope and love? "And the greatest of all is LOVE."