Considering A Bjork Song In The Context Of The Ancient Greeks

Driving on a not-so-nice Houston freeway, I was listening to Bjork sing a song called “All Is Full Of Love.” She repeats the title of the song over and over. I wasn’t moving so quickly on the highway and I had time to consider what Bjork was asserting.

I’ve been reading a book called Early Greek Philosophy. It’s one of those Penguin Classics books. The book consists of the remaining fragments of the writings of long-ago Greeks.

The issues the philosphers deal with are elemental. What do things consist of? What is the best life? These questions have value when it can be so hard to believe anything anymore. Maybe it would be best to return to the most basic questions and start all over again.

Bjork’s lyric that “All Is Full Of Love” makes more sense than it may sound. I often consider the fact that the atoms which comprise inanimate objects arise from the same place as do the atoms of which I am comprised of. With this in mind, it may not be so far-fetched to grant human or organic qualities to non-living things.

I wish I could fully agree with Bjork. I don’t really think that all is full of love. However, I do believe that a combination of imagination and understanding of the world around us can lead people to a more humane vision of what existence is.

So good for Bjork—She’s at least on to something.