ART
有时人们可以把艺术定义为一幅美丽的画或挂在画廊墙上的一幅画。舞蹈和音乐也是很好的艺术表现形式。几年前的夏天，我想象着艺术是无处不在的。这篇文章是关于我所看到的，以及我是如何在那特别的一天到达那里的。
我决定骑自行车去城里最古老，也是我认为最好的社区，寻找最好的花园。这是一场比赛，我是裁判。我周末从不花在园艺上，也从未在园艺比赛中担任过裁判。我也从来没有骑着自行车随便闲逛过。使用它进行锻炼和山地速度冒险是常态。这似乎是一个令人放松的主意，所以我走出门去了。在我早期的任务中，我发现了一个如此巨大的住宅花园，它为评判所有其他花园设立了标准或标准，这个花园拥有一切美丽的东西。它有颜色、阴影、图案和位置。房间很干净，修剪得很好。它有蜿蜒的小径，有沉思的地方。 I stopped for a while and saw the garden and its diverse vegetation, as a piece or pieces of art. The rest of the day became an art show. I saw artistic gardens and flowers everywhere. I began to smell the art, it became intoxicating. I started to see art in the design of homes, and how the gardens were meant to compliment each other. I saw it in entrance ways, stain glass windows, and staircases. There was art in the majestic tree lined streets. I made it downtown to the river, where everything drains, including meandering bicyclists. Someone had designed the most unbelievable fountain, with marble walkways and hanging baskets of flowers. I talked with a few bystanders in the art gallery I was traveling, and noticed they had art all over them. It was in their jewelry, hair style, clothes, and a smile that remains etched in my mind. I stopped in a café for some nourishment, and also to come down a little bit. Unbelievably, the food was artistic, made by artisans, in a dinning room that defined decor in a unusual way. When I came back outside, I looked up and saw cotton ball clouds on a turquoise canvas, oh please stop!
I ended my trip, or art show, five hours later, buying the best garden in the city a first place award. I see art much more often today, and in many more places. Not like that special day, but much more than I had. Art is in everything, and is made by everyone. I would like to thank all the special artists who create art. Thanks.
PS: Slowing down could be the key to seeing art.
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There was a place, called Huntington Heights---overlooking the Ohio River, and, of course, Huntington, West Virginia. My grandmother lived there, along with several of my uncles, who, as adults, had not found lives of their own. None of this seemed untoward or out of place to me---then...I was only 4 or 5 years old, and did not understand the realms of unemployment or unemployability. But, I recall, even today, the gas-fired space heaters which (that?) heated the rambling house on the hill. Uncle Bill died, young, of ulcerative colitis. Grandpa had already left for California (I met him, many years later, but after a short visit, still did not know exactly why he left his family. I imagine he saw the futility of conditions he could never hope to change.)
There is some other dwelling there now...I have seen it from the Huntington waterfront. Probably owned by someone who has far more money than my grandmother's family ever had...just guessing, you see.
Life is not a work of art. It is only where we are for awhile---to pass on genes. This is biology. If that is art, sobeit.

?TO LIVE LIFE AS??
No one, and I mean statistically no one, ?looks at their life as a work of art? and makes any changes. Yes, some are proud of losing weight, exercising daily, quitting drinking, getting a degree, etc., but this has nothing to do with ?art.? Unless, the meaning of ?art,? like so many other philosophy words, has become so broadened as to have no meaning left whatsoever. Stick with the Greek philology and taxonomy and epistemology: like, say, ?beauty,? ?art? has two meanings: one which everyone (except nut-cases) knows is art, and a second which we can never really define, but which we reach into with dialogue.
我更感兴趣的是，从哲学的角度来说，它是关于什么叫做艺术?我们(无论什么或谁?我们?是)，想要把自己和我们自己联系起来吗?我认为它是关于尝试与某些精英社会群体交流，或成为其中一员(尼采所涉的所有原因)。正是社会精英的吸引力让我们?用“艺术”这个词?连接到我们的?的生活。
Hey, skip the ?art? part altogether: the attraction of the word is all empty self-satisfaction and is self-defined. If you want to improve yourself somehow, and you practice and exercise to do so, and you get results, that is ?success.? Congratulations! Attaching ?art? to it is foolish and egotistical. Art is something very different from all this.
Only philosophers believe in (and talk about) a human ability to ?look at one?s life,? and to use reason to 1. see ways to change it, and 2. change it.