On Beauty.
I've been reflecting a lot on the importance of living a Beautiful Life over the past year and have discussed this topic in a number of my previous essays. There has been an assumption on my part that the word Beauty is well defined and requires no further explanation. Upon deeper thought, however, I think this is a mistake as we generally tend to use the word "Beauty" in the most superficial manner to express the extent of our preferences. It would be lazy of me to be satisfied with this idea when my own experiences tell me that it is something so much deeper than that. So in this essay, I want to take some time to explore the concept of Beauty in more detail. What is Beauty and what does it mean for something to be Beautiful? What are the ingredients required to live a Beautiful Life?
Sunsets. A serene yet masterful performance that the universe puts on for us, starting with the intensity of the evening sun, the interactions of its golden rays of light with the clouds that scatter the sky; the mixture of reds, yellows, blues and violets that emerge as it begins to dip beneath the horizon, receding into the soft red fire that bleeds into the darkness. This is the scene I typically picture when I think of the word Beauty. To me, there is nothing more Beautiful than the experience of an intense sunset . But, where exactly does the Beauty lie in this sunset? Does it arise from the Sun itself or is it created by its interaction with the sky and the land beneath the horizon?
To pose this question more generally, is Beauty an objective property of the world?
To be clear, I use the word "world" to encompass all physical forms, processes, situations, concepts, ideas and consciousness that exist in our idea of the world, and for lack of a more suitable word without getting into the complexity of metaphysics. Objective Beauty seems to be the way most of us think of Beauty - as an adjective referring to how attractive something is. "That's a Beautiful Poem" or "Her eyes are so Beautiful". We make it seem like this Beauty that we refer to is contained in these things and it flows out of them upon our beckoning. Certainly, we know that not all things are Beautiful. Some are; others have a profound Ugliness about them. If there is such an inherent property that exists in nature, then this is exactly what I am trying to pin down.
I think there is a serious logical error in this idea of Beauty as an inherent property of the world and it is quite easy to prove that. Firstly, objective properties should be unchanging, sensable, measurable properties. My height is an objective property of myself. Bring me a measuring tape and I'll tell you exactly how much height I have. The specific heat capacity of the sand on a beach is an objective property of itself. We have scientific methods to measure how much energy it would take to raise its temperature. Yet, we believe that the Beauty of a sunset or anything for that matter is a measure of how attractive it is, but we have no way to generate a consensus between ourselves on what that means, or how much Beauty there actually is. "That is a Beautiful sunset" implies that it is full of Beauty. But is it?
Let me try and dispel the idea of objective Beauty from another angle. If Beauty is indeed a property of the sunset, it must then be equally Beautiful to me whenever I am in its presence . However, I know from experience that this is not true. On days when my mind is at peace, I am able to focus completely on the sunset and immerse myself in the wonder happening before me. I feel the Beauty. Yet, at other times, I fail to have nearly as profound of an experience, because I have things on my mind that distract me. I fail to experience the Beauty of the sunset as much. Sometimes, even when my mind is free and the sunset is as intense as it could ever be, there are mosquitos on the beach that I am too busy swatting away. I think we can all agree that there's nothing Beautiful about the sunset when this happens. I quickly pack up my things and leave the beach as soon as I can.
From this, it becomes clear to me that Beauty is not an objective property of the world. My experience of objective properties like my own height or the heat of the sand on the beach does not change depending on my circumstances. Then, how can a sunset or anything else in itself be Beautiful? It must follow that it cannot. In fact nothing is Beautiful in itself. Rather, Beauty is a subjective state of mind that we experience when we engage with the world and build relationships with it in specific ways that allow for it. Beauty is a feeling; a way of Life. It exists within us, not the objects that we perceive. Somehow, when I engage with something like the sunset, its qualities generate within me, if I allow it, a feeling of Beauty.
A valid question that arises if we go down this line of thinking is - what exactly does a 'feeling of Beauty' even mean? Let's think through a few examples that one may consider 'Beautiful'. When I look at a sunset, what I'm really feeling is a mixture of awe and peacefulness, among other emotions. When I look at an artistic piece from Van Gogh, I might feel visual pleasure and intrigue as to what the artist was thinking during this creative project. When I observe an act of kindness between strangers, I might feel compassion, empathy and respect for humanity. When I lock eyes with an attractive stranger, I might feel excitement and perhaps a mysteriousness about them. A sad song, on the other hand, might create warmth, melancholy or bittersweetness within me. A variety of emotions all creating a similar sense of Beauty. How can this be? You could argue that these emotions are, in general, quite arbitrary in relation to Beauty. However, an important commonality in all these examples is the sense of harmony that they create in me. When I experience something 'Beautiful', I lose my sense of self and time and simply immerse myself in the experience without much need for rational thought.
What makes these emotions meaningful in relation to Beauty is the value that we place on each of them. If I value awe and peacefulness in my Life, then unconsciously (or consciously with practice), I will reflect what I value in Life onto the qualities that the sunset exudes. If I cherish the warmth of melancholy and bittersweetness, then I find comfort in reflecting these feelings onto a song that encompasses the qualities that resonate with these feelings. Neither the sunset nor the song nor anything with attractive qualities create these values in me. They already exist within me. I choose to reflect them onto the world, not the other way round. If these values did not exist within me to begin with, I would not generate any Beauty through these experiences. Someone who is restless and impatient is not going to experience the peacefulness that comes with sitting still and watching a Sunset. Someone who does not believe in prayer will find no Beauty in sitting alone in a church and trying to communicate with a God. Beauty comes from within us when we are able to reflect and align our values with the qualities of the world that we perceive.
This reflection of my values onto the world around me is a harmonious relationship that I create with it. By doing so, the values of the subject become one with the qualities of the object. They are in alignment. And the more this alignment resonates, the more Beautiful the world becomes. I am able to identify in the object the values that I encompass. My identity, being nothing but a formulation of the values that I hold, dissolves, as subject and object become one instantaneously. That's why we use words like 'being lost in it' or 'stuck in time' when we experience Beauty. That's why the one common feeling in all experiences of Beauty, is being in the presence of something 'bigger than ourselves'. When this alignment and resonance of values and qualities happens along with an instantaneous dissolution of Self, a spark is created - Beauty. You feel it. When you experience something 'Beautiful', you are simply in a flow state of awareness of the values that make up who you are. This clarity, I think, is quite powerful, because it means we are not simply puppets in a world of Beautiful and Ugly categories. Beauty arises from within us. In fact, it already exists within us - we simply have to manifest it through the world we live in. We are in control of how Beautiful Life can be.
This clarity of definition is just a start. The next step is to create some practicality around it. What are some of the characteristics of Beauty that would allow us to achieve a Beautiful Life then?
Presence of Mind and Engagement
Think about what happens when you go for, say, a hike through the woods on a warm, sunny day. Beauty does not instantaneously appear to you out of nothing, because the woods do not hold Beauty to begin with. You cannot find it by looking at the ground and simply counting your steps as you walk through the woods. Nor will you find it by thinking about your problems at work as you make your way. No, it first requires you to actively engage with the world through your senses - to see the colours of the leaves, to hear the whistle of the wind, to smell the scent of the pine trees. Now, the woods start to become Beautiful. You slow down. You walk up to a tree and take a close look at the leaves and are amazed by the veins embedded in its translucent green coat. Somehow, the Beauty of the woods has now become more intense. I use this scenario to explain a key characteristic of Beauty - it requires a Presence of Mind. An ability to be in the here and now. When you take a breathe of that woodsy air, in that very instant, you are completely in sync with the nature of the air - its flow, its scent, its crispness. You create harmony between your values and the qualities of the air and the nature that you are a part of. That's what makes it Beautiful. And if you think about it, in that very instant, you loosen up on your identify of self, and instead of creating divisions between yourself and the world around you, you become one with the air that you are breathing, fully absorbed by it. It is this presence of mind and active engagement with your world that allows you to sense its natural qualities and create Beauty. The deeper you go, the more this alignment of values resonates, the more Beautiful it gets. Presence of mind does not necessarily mean being present in the physical world. You could be present in your thoughts as well. Or thoughtlessness. All it means is - whatever you do, engage in it to your fullest ability, shut off the noise and create Flow.
Values
To fully characterize Beauty, we need to understand the role that our Values play in it, because as we discussed earlier, Beauty is a reflection of these values onto the qualities of the world. I remember in middle school, there was a girl who had an ‘unhealthy’ fascination with caterpillars and various insects. She would find them in the soil or on trees, catch them with her bare hands and play with them, letting them roam around her body. Most kids, including myself, were quite disturbed by this, but clearly this girl found some level of Beauty in them. I was quite curious by this, and so one day I bluntly asked her to explain her fascination. She told to me that even though on the surface the insects looked slimy and gross, she had become enamored by the beautiful patterns they had on their bodies and the fascinating methods of crawling around, so distinct from what we humans experience. Now, in the context of the definition of Beauty that we established, I understand that she was attracted to these creatures because of the values she held - specifically a general curiosity about nature, an admiration for the uniqueness of Life and its patterns and lack of fear for things that are different from us. The qualities of these creatures resonated with the values that she held. These values were not something that she was born with, rather something she had developed through her experiences in Life. I did not hold these specific values, but then again, I never really tried to.
Our ability to generate Beauty depends on the relationships we have with the world that we engage with. The relationships we form depend on the values that we hold towards specific things, created by Life's experiences. I find sunsets Beautiful because I value the harmonious performance of the various elements of nature interacting with each other. The relationship I have with the ocean on the other hand, is one of fear, and so I tend to stay away from it as much as possible. However, the fact is that these values and subsequently these relationships we have with our world are not set in stone. We can practice the freedom to change our values or find new perspectives that we can value. In the example above, I could change my relationship of fear with the ocean by taking on swimming classes and exposing myself to it more often. This, I would hope, would allow me to experience the Beauty of swimming in the ocean. So, we need to practice the freedom to change or create new values in the pursuit of Beauty.
Perspectives
The world has an infinite number and depth of qualities that it gives us access to, since all "the world" really is, at the end of the day, is our own representation of qualities as categories of objective or subjective things. Hence, our ability to create Beauty is only limited by our own inability to create the relationships that resonate with the qualities of the world. What seems Ugly from one angle, can align with our values when considered from another - it's a matter of which of the many qualities of the world we choose to identify and align with. That's the power of perspective. Beauty is not simply constrained to the forms of the world and thought, but it also extends to the peripheral processes that make them, the outcomes that come from them and the stories that surround them.
When I was thirty-three years old, I was diagnosed with stage three cancer that had metastasized quite significantly. That news came absolutely out of the blue. I had just gotten married. I was at the peak of my career up to that point in my Life. Things were going well. And then this happened. I was devastated by the news at first and I was constantly stuck in the unforgiving loop of the question 'Why me?'. The diagnosis and the process of treatment was one of the worst and "Ugliest" experiences of my Life. This period was filled with so much fear, weakness, nausea and multiple visits to the emergency room. On the surface, I couldn't even recognize myself after the effects of the chemotherapy had kicked in.
In the weeks after I learned of my diagnosis and leading up to the start of my treatment, I took some time to reflect on how I wanted to deal with this upcoming experience I was about to go through. At the time, I decided that it was probably best to put on my emotional blinders and just get through the treatment, so that I wouldn't have to "feel" anything, leaving just enough of an opening to let in some positivity that may come my way. In retrospect, this decision allowed me to come to peace quickly with my diagnosis. With this peace, I was able to make the decision to inform my family and friends, without hiding the news from anybody. Unknowingly, at the time, out of this decision came so much love and support from the people around me - more than I'd ever experienced before and more than I could ever ask for. And from this came deeper bonds with friends, reignited relationships with my family, and stories about strength, laughter and love that I will carry with me forever. Despite the unarguable Ugliness of this disease that I had, somehow, I found myself valuing the experience. Somehow, there was Beauty to be found in it.
I cite this story only because it has given me a strong conviction about the power of perspective. It has uncovered to me a truth that even though nothing in itself is Beautiful, everything has the potential to create Beauty within us, even the Ugliest. And we can find this Beauty by surrendering our traditional patterns of perspectives to create room for new ones that create resonance between our values and the qualities of the world - in the extreme experiences or even the most mundane. If you find something Ugly, turn it around, open it up, look at it with one eye closed, cut it apart and reassemble it - whatever you need to do to align it with the values you hold. This is how Life becomes Beautiful. We are indeed in control of making our lives Beautiful.
By tuning ourselves to exploit these characteristics of Beauty, we have the ability to turn it into a way of Life. It is not just some word we should throw at things to express the extent of our preference for them. It is so much more than that. It exists within us and it flows through the relationships that we create with the world when our values align and resonate with its qualities. As a result, Beauty captures everything that we value in Life - the values that we know of and even those we do not. It shines a light on everything we are and everything we strive to be. This package of all our values is what, ultimately, gives Life its meaning. And that essentially means that to seek Beauty is to seek meaning in our lives. But that's an exploration for another day.
