Serendipity

Beauty, peace, and moments when you feel as though you connect with the universe - as though you've caught a glimpse inside the machine and understand how it works - are things you find along the way in pursuit of something else. Like this unbroken view of the valley on Christmas night, after an otherwise unremarkable (and wet) snowshoe trek up an icy forest service road. I find I need to get outside and move towards some goal, however arbitrary, to place myself in a position to see beauty or experience this form of peace (contentment).

It's usually not clear in advance what might inspire that encounter, and there's no guarantee of encountering anything profound aside from the effort the journey requires. But the encounter usually comes.

Maybe it's the case that like J.S. Mill recognized in happiness, peace and even beauty cannot be one's primary goal if one wants to secure them. Maybe one needs to commit oneself to another worthwhile end to be capable of finding these things along the way. Call it the paradox of beauty, or the paradox of peace. When one pursues the further goal it's not necessary that these things should follow. But when that further goal is good, they often do. The connection here may not be tight. It’s not logical. But it's consistent with the way the world works, and that deeper magic with which it's imbued.