“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

By Harper R., TIWP Student

There is beauty and there is terror. At first they may seem like two opposites that never overlap in the real world, yet they are more connected than we realize. What makes something beautiful can also be what makes it terrifying, and the combination of the two is what fascinates our minds. When beauty is noticed, it often becomes the main focus, and everything around it becomes inferior. It is gazed at with longing eyes, and praised for its ability to mute the rest of the world. But sometimes, beauty can only exist in a superficial way, coating the outside of a frightening interior with temporary paint. But as we know, that thin layer will soon peel off, revealing a heart of terror.

Terror exists in the back of the mind, stuffed away because the unknown is frightening. When the memory of terror surfaces, it is quickly replaced with a memory of beauty. That is the instinct in this society. To cover up anything that doesn’t appear beautiful from the outside. It is somehow engraved in our minds that two opposites such as beauty and terror, cannot coexist in the same world. However, the contrast of beauty and terror creates a deeper understanding of the world because they can live in each other silently.