The Word as Art

Words can have beauty.

Of course they can have meaning and significance, provide insight and truth, but they also can have beauty.

And sometimes beautiful words can be found in the most unlikely places.

For years Time magazine has been a steady companion. I'm a cover-to-cover person and have often found, when an article strikes me as being so profoundly written with such interesting phraseology that I have to turn back to see who the author is, that the author is Nancy Gibbs.

Here's her latest, in an article about whether temperament matters in a president:
"But as soon as you make the list [of qualities a president needs], it mocks you, for history is a dance of luck and intent, and sometimes they trip each other."

That, to me, is beautiful.

Short in number of words, but long in thought-provoking content.

Or this, again from Nancy:
"Temperament is a special subcommittee of character: it is less intellect than instinct, more about music than lyrics."

Yes.

You can't just read it. You have to think about it.

David von Drehl gets a nod from me as well. In an article about the importance of experience to a president, he said:
"Experience, in other words, gets its value from the person who has it. In certain lives, a little goes a long way. Some people grow and ripen through years of government service; others spoil on the vine."

You don't just have to write well to say things like that, you have to think well.

I loved this little analogy he did comparing life to a state fair:
"A fair is both a world apart and the world in miniature...where the earnest industry of the 4-H pavilion exists alongside the low appetites of the funnel-cake stand and the thrill seeking at the Tilt-A-Whirl. Where the three stages of life are marked by a first sno-cone, a first French kiss and a first ribbon for baking Bundt cakes."

These insights from a medium that's made to be recycled within the week.

We somehow, as a society, have developed something akin to disdain for the media. We say they only bring bad news, we say they are biased, we say they just look for dirt.

But, in fact, we wouldn't have a free society without a free press. And when given a choice between a story of violence and a story of policy, we -- the readers -- choose the violent one. And sometimes the facts presage a certain bias, though we're certainly intelligent enough to know it when we see it. And sometimes it's been important for us to know about the dirt.

Nancy didn't tell us if temperament matters. As any good journalist, she quoted experts from all angles and looked at examples from all eras.

David didn't tell us that experience is the most important thing or not, but made us look at it through all eyes in all directions.

Lots of writers give you the facts. But some present those facts with such clarity and insight that they're giving you art as well.

And that is a beautiful thing.

And for what it's worth, for what I've read combined with what I believe, temperament does matter and experience doesn't. And I'll be voting accordingly.