The Beauty In Ordinary Things
In Praise of Humanity
“It is essential to prove that there is beauty in small, dry things.”
T. Hulme.
Away from the exoticness of Bali and away from the blueness of the Maldives, there is beauty in ordinary things.
From the woman who helps you to hold your child on the plane, to the stranger who lets a child play games on their phones, to the small talk between people walking their dogs, there is much to be relished in everyday interactions which are not cosmetically pleasing. So then, it bothers me when people think that ordinary things ought not to be “wowed at” because they “ought to be the norm.” The norm, you say. Why should we desist from celebrating norms?
I do not think for once that only the exotic deserves celebration. A baecation in the Carribean is not worth more than a simple walk around your neighborhood watching kids play ball, or aged citizens gossiping in the moonlight. There is no ordination to leisure that the “wowest” parts are the ones with an uncommon, perhaps Instagram-worthy aesthetic. There is beauty in the norm.
And this is a praise of humanity: once you are able to detach from every algorithmised taste, you will realise that people still find pleasure in ordinary things. Men still love women without hourglass shapes and they love their stretch marks wholeheartedly. Women still adore their skinny, short kings without rallying around the redpill gigachad who boasts of commanding a harem. We have not lost our ability to recognise the beauty in ordinary things.
People still enjoy sitting at their doorsteps and they still enjoy simply watching nothing from their open windows—old people at least still do. Now that is the art of leisure. And leisure requires no justification. God already provided one with the idea of the Sabbath.
Where technical civilization is man's conquest of space, the sabbath (or leisure in this context), is the aimless enjoyment of time. And this has been my animation of work: we work to be at leisure. We master matter so that we can spend time enjoying the matters of the master.
Per Goethe and Nock, the test of civilisation is conversation. But allow my ambition to add another test of civilisation: uselessness.
I am a big champion of “useless” things and “idle” moments for the reason that only a sufficient society can afford useless things and idle moments. It is why I am surprised that some rich people cannot halt “the grind” to enjoy unjustifiable things. Success is nothing if you can not step off the treadmill to do the less justifiable things. (“Less justifiable” refers to useless things and idle moments which are hardly rationalised in productive or commercial terms.) One could weigh Athens on the remark that “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” (Acts 17:21).
Hulme wrote that “it is essential to prove that there is beauty in small, dry things.” Perceiving a thing as banal may indicate that we have lost our good sense of appreciation. The solution is not to delete but to shift perspective, clean our lenses, and rediscover its beauty. When people with nearsightedness cannot see the words on the page they get lenses, not throw the book away.
When we experience banality, we must reframe. And this is what writers do. They find ways to vivify what seems to have gotten old. It is what artists do: they capture a common essence in uncommon ways. And one may add photographers into the mix. They glorify common moments with perspective and colour. But whether or not you are a writer, an artist, or a photographer, it is wholly human to reframe and enjoy common things via the instrument of gratitude.
Bonus
At the end of all our labours, we wish to enjoy a modicum of leisure; to enjoy something light; something that we are poised to forget as soon as the moment washes; something fun; something trivia. See here to learn how to enjoy leisure
On nature, enjoy this wonderful song to calibrate your sense of appreciation:
Here is something from my friend BrodaGreen: “It is the philosopher's nature to point us to the existence of trivia, of leisure, and shine knowledge on the ordinary things that keep us going. It is the poet's nature to zoom into this ordinariness, this revelation, and explore it. Science tells us that flowers are a sign that fruits are coming, that they are reproductive elements. Poetry explores flowers as the xxx of lovers, the existence of nectar as sweetness for many a weary man, and that flowers are adorned in ways Solomon's embroideries could not capture. The philosopher is as important as the poet because there is no poetry without philosophy. There is no love without pheromones, there is no coital climax without puberty.”
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalms 19:1)
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Thank you.