> Beauty has been stolen from the people and is being sold back to them as luxury
Beauty in common life is always beautiful, however this is not clear enough. It is time for beauty or the capacity for enjoying life outside of labor, that has been stolen from the people, and only after then are people being sold a counterfeit called "content" and "product", sometimes a luxury good and other times an equivalent to pornography. Contentment leads to content. Productivity leads to product.
The question becomes, HOW do they "steal time for beauty" then? Inability to exercise freedom within the liminal space of work (Arendt's craft vs labor)? The economy and work manifesting as a dystopic force rather than a neutral one (labor theory in economics)? Lack of access of skills or tools for creating beauty (totalitarianism)? Or just that a new generation of men that does not even be able to fathom beauty to begin with ("hylics", midwits, and idiocracy)?
Wow, thanks for sharing! As someone who is deeply moved by beauty, I really resonated with this piece. Aesthetic deprivation is definitely a thing - I feel drained and lifeless when I take in too much ugliness. My coping mechanism basically involves picking up some Nabokov or Mishima, or taking a walk around an area with lovely architecture or lots of nature. Love your point about slowing down and finding beauty in the mundane though :)
"To change things you have to first accept them as they are. You have to see the territory for what it is, with clear eyes. You have to quell the impotent wishing that says if only things were different- if only circumstances had not led to things being how they are now- if only. But things are how they are. "
I was cleaning out my email inbox before getting up to make dinner. I had an email saved to refer back to. That email linked to your substack. As a substack writer myself I clicked.
The first paragraph grabbed me immediately. I went from laying down to sitting up. Yes, I believe I will subscribe.
Really enjoyable read! Loved the use of the image that looked like a vessel repaired in the kinstukuroi tradition as that speaks to the beauty of brokenness. And like you, I too get unnerved and bleak in a room that is untidy or devoid of "character," yet is that true of all, or just a subset of us? Because I think back to all the homes I was in as a child that brought me anxiety, yet the families within seemed to live just fine. . . there is likely no definitive answer, just something that struck me as reading. But here's to slowing down, seeing the beautiful, and using beauty as revolution.
Beauty is a gift from God--a gift from him that allows humans to observe the material world and find the immaterial or spiritual realm exists through the observations of beauty. It is no coincidence the further out society falls from God beauty also dissipates. Wonderful observations, thank you for sharing.
> Beauty has been stolen from the people and is being sold back to them as luxury
Beauty in common life is always beautiful, however this is not clear enough. It is time for beauty or the capacity for enjoying life outside of labor, that has been stolen from the people, and only after then are people being sold a counterfeit called "content" and "product", sometimes a luxury good and other times an equivalent to pornography. Contentment leads to content. Productivity leads to product.
The question becomes, HOW do they "steal time for beauty" then? Inability to exercise freedom within the liminal space of work (Arendt's craft vs labor)? The economy and work manifesting as a dystopic force rather than a neutral one (labor theory in economics)? Lack of access of skills or tools for creating beauty (totalitarianism)? Or just that a new generation of men that does not even be able to fathom beauty to begin with ("hylics", midwits, and idiocracy)?
Wow, thanks for sharing! As someone who is deeply moved by beauty, I really resonated with this piece. Aesthetic deprivation is definitely a thing - I feel drained and lifeless when I take in too much ugliness. My coping mechanism basically involves picking up some Nabokov or Mishima, or taking a walk around an area with lovely architecture or lots of nature. Love your point about slowing down and finding beauty in the mundane though :)
Because of this paragraph, I sat up.
"To change things you have to first accept them as they are. You have to see the territory for what it is, with clear eyes. You have to quell the impotent wishing that says if only things were different- if only circumstances had not led to things being how they are now- if only. But things are how they are. "
I was cleaning out my email inbox before getting up to make dinner. I had an email saved to refer back to. That email linked to your substack. As a substack writer myself I clicked.
The first paragraph grabbed me immediately. I went from laying down to sitting up. Yes, I believe I will subscribe.
Really enjoyable read! Loved the use of the image that looked like a vessel repaired in the kinstukuroi tradition as that speaks to the beauty of brokenness. And like you, I too get unnerved and bleak in a room that is untidy or devoid of "character," yet is that true of all, or just a subset of us? Because I think back to all the homes I was in as a child that brought me anxiety, yet the families within seemed to live just fine. . . there is likely no definitive answer, just something that struck me as reading. But here's to slowing down, seeing the beautiful, and using beauty as revolution.
Beauty is a gift from God--a gift from him that allows humans to observe the material world and find the immaterial or spiritual realm exists through the observations of beauty. It is no coincidence the further out society falls from God beauty also dissipates. Wonderful observations, thank you for sharing.
Absolutely gripping essay, thanks a lot for putting into words an unspoken, omnipresent truth of modern society.