You can laugh at me if you'd like but I sort of fell in love with these plates (bowls, mugs, etc) and had to buy them, even though we're already cutting it close on cupboard space. I just love these guys. I think this is partially because I got them for $14.95 when they should have been sixty dollars or so and partially because they are just so darling. I feel silly writing this, I'm honestly laughing to myself a bit but I just sort of love these plates (clearly, who takes pictures of plates right?) and these plates have had me thinking lately, about pretty things and why we think they're pretty. One of my professors explained that pretty things are containable and have a beautiful form and that's sort of what tells our mind to think they're pretty (think gardens, clean, non-threatening, pleasant). Sublime things, on the other hand, are sort of crazy and uncontainable and that's where their beauty comes from (think hurricanes. they are sort of amazing but only when they're admired from a distance) we love things that we can't explain almost as much as we hate them. Sublime things are inexplicably and terrifyingly beautiful. I don't know why I think that's such a cool idea. I think "sublime moments" happen when we suddenly realize how small and fragile we are. Sublime things make you stare. I think sometimes the sky can be sublime, like those times when you just glue your eyes to it and think about how small you are, or when you watch a hurricane pass through your backyard even though it puts you in danger (true story) and you realize that it could sweep you away and that would be it. I think what I don't understand is why that idea isn't only horrifying but fascinating and beautiful. Looking at a tornado and realizing it can swallow you up doesn't stop you from looking, if anything it intensifies your gaze, but why? I think that even though we like to feel like the center of the universe at times we also like to feel small. For me, feeling small means I'm part of something really big, the small aspect doesn't mean I'm an insignificant part just a small part. The way I see it, we're small either way and we can choose to be a small part of a very small world or a small part of something magnificent and limitless Focusing on our own small reality doesn't make us the center of anything, it makes us selfish and delusional. Sometimes I think we're afraid to see the bigger picture because we think it makes us less important, what we forget is that the bigger is the only thing that gives us real importance.

bet you didn't know dinnerware could be so thought-provoking.