Photo Cliche

How many prrty pichers of sunsets are there on the internet? How many million, I should have asked. That's why I only burden readers with sunrises, which of course are completely different, and therefore fresh and original.

OK seriously, how much of an aesthetic snob should you allow yourself to be, when you are a blogger? I am prone to rolling my eyes at travel blogs by newbie RVers from the East, who show photos of, say, Monument Valley. Maybe this is churlish and unfair. After all if I were to adopt a new kitten, should I fail to get pleasure from its play with a ball of twine because that's a cyootsie-wootsie photo cliche on calendars and Hallmark cards?

Recall the chapter, "Zest," in Bertrand Russell's classic The Conquest of Happiness: 

"...the fastidious person who condemns half the pleasures of life as unaesthetic. Oddly enough, all these types feel contempt for the man of healthy appetite and consider themselves his superior.

From the height of their disillusionment they look down upon those whom they despise as simple souls. All disenchantment is to me a malady, which is to be cured as soon as possible, not to be regarded as a higher form of wisdom."

OK, let's compromise. Here are some prrty colors at sunrise. Let's agree that colors by themselves are not what make for a marvelous sunrise.

 

The male mind being what it is, I got some real pleasure from the shapes of the clouds in this sunrise, although I couldn't get the ideal colors and shapes at the same time.