Bruce Crown

How Dim the Promised Land Bruce Crown

An artist tries to paint his masterpiece; a detective tries to unweave a convoluted crime; a lawyer tries to undo his perfect lies. Based on actual events, how dim the promised land pits seemingly unrelated professions by the subtlest strings and dives into the relentless pursuit of meaning and beauty.

A physicist-turned-artist, a cynic-turned-detective, and a liar-turned-lawyer, all unsatisfied with their lives pursue the transcendental concepts that connect us to each other and tear us away from one another through the agony of their souls.

"Are those that pursue simple beauty happier because of their pursuit? Throughout my life I've tried to seek it with pleasure but I am almost always apprehended by its tyranny. The horizon has never penetrated my soul; the sky has never parted its clouds to illustrate its magnificence. My eyes do not grasp the depth of its ardor. Could it be that my pursuit is in vain? Everything I have touched, felt, or seen has been imperfect and incomplete. My paintings are filled with anguish and everyone will feel its pain and incomprehensibility. None of my creations could be beautiful because I am competing with something superior to myself and thus all I create is fated to be ugly and incomplete. The more I thought about it and every time I used the word I seemed to diminish its qualities. If I refer to all of these things as beautiful... it'll lose its panache and if I come face-to-face with real Beauty I wouldn't recognize it." -- Bruce Crown, How Dim the Promised Land