I'm taking a shot at answering Cheerskep's quest for what happens in the aesthetic experience.
It is the feeling of being loved, throughly understood, accepted, and admired. The "oceanic feeling"? In this way the work of art is like a magic mirror, an objectified consciousness, momentarily surpassing, or forgiving, our flaws. I'm suggesting that the aesthetic experience is always the private, even secretive feeling of being loved even when, paradoxically , the art work reflects our own sense of projected resistance or unworthiness. wc
