The struggle to remake our civilization into something actually sustainable has begun, and in our homes is where the struggle will be centered. There's a lot that has to be jettisoned in the work: expectations for day to day novelty, for long-distance travel, for physical pampering, for plenty of cash on hand--all these. And these renunciations and goodbyes will be painful. They're guaranteed to be.
But this necessary change isn't just defined by subtraction. It's not JUST about paring down, giving away, and doing without! It's about addition too. It's about stronger muscles and greater physical health. It's about added pride in your home, because in many ways that home will be the work of your own hands. It's about the deepening of family and community relationships. Then too it's about beauty, and a surprising amount of beauty to be discovered; yes, there's a princely place in this direction for beauty.
It's time to invest more prolifically in beauty. Time to cultivate beauty in our lives and the lives of others. And I say this not only as a literary artist, who would naturally benefit if people cared more to invest in the beauty of books, theater, and poetry. I say it as a citizen of the earth who believes without hesitation that the pursuit of all kinds of beauty could serve as a substitute for owning stuff and consuming stuff; and a much superior substitute at that! After all, the main need in life, after basic needs have been minimally met, is for meaning. And since beauty and meaning are naturally allied, it makes sense to seek meaning by cultivating beauty.
I have no means of proving this statistically--though I imagine the attempt has been made--but I wonder if there has ever been an era, when the gap between what might be spent on beauty and the amount actually spent on it has ever been so wide? We live in an age in many ways choking on its own abundance, and yet I think it's not an exaggeration to say that we're also choking on ugliness. Any glance into history will show that it has been different. In ancient times, cities vied with one another to build the most beautiful bath houses and temples and to claim the most beautiful harbors and markets and hilltop views. Today though, the cultivation of beauty in the urban landscape (especially if taxes are involved) is dismissed as a dispensable extra, and in our personal lives, it's generally treated that way as well. At least when push comes to shove.
I'm thinking of a picture I saw once of the wardrobe of a nomadic woman in Mali. She owned only two garments--the garment she had on and the one that was packed away in a wooden chest. But both of these were intoxicatingly beautiful: hand woven, stunningly designed, colorful, exuberant, flaring with life. Of course we in the so called developed world could demand more beauty in our clothes. We could afford that beauty too, especially if we reduced the number of items in our wardrobe. But we don't. We prefer cheap and plenty to beautiful and few. Sad.
Some time ago, I was reading an article on life in post-crash Greece, and specifically life for young people, over half of whom are still unemployed. It was a sobering article. The young men and women interviewed expressed a sense of being cut off from the future, of having no prospects and no sense of personal agency anymore. Many of them described feeling depressed and bored. Time itself seemed to weigh heavy on their hands. They complained that, with no money, there was nothing to do. One woman said her brother stayed in his room most of his day, sleeping or trying to sleep.
At one level I felt bad for these young folks; here, after all, were genuine victims of an economic system created for the profit of a few, and not designed for general human flourishing. A system based on speculation and the pretense of labor, not actual goods, and not active investment in the lives of living human beings. At a different level though, I felt impatient and angry at their complaints. None of those interviewed was going hungry. All of them had a home. Many of them had large families. So, what exactly was their problem again? Not enough money? Well any child playing a game of tag, knows that money isn't necessary to have fun. Too much time? Some people retire from work to have time!
Too little imagination--was that their problem? Too little insight to see the advantages of their situation? Well yes, that might be. Too small a thirst for beauty? Almost certainly. Honestly I wanted to wave my arms and tell them: plant flowers. Plant lots of them.Take a walk in the country. Play sports. Sports are beautiful. Read a bunch of good books (particularly some Thoreau). Clean up your streets. Learn to play the guitar or just sing a lot. Cook your next meal with attention to beauty. Bake your next loaf of bread with attention to beauty. Paint a mural on the walls of your room. Shine your shoes. Shine your furniture. Comb your dog. Arrange some of those flowers that you grew. Go to the museum and look at those Greek antiquities, or heck since you're in Greece dig in your back yard and see if you can find some yourself. Take a bus into the countryside some night with a blanket and a lover and look up at the stars. Let things progress from there.
Again, I don't consider myself unsympathetic toward the young; I have an eighteen year old myself. Nor am I blind to the fact that many of these young people honestly yearn for professions they will find meaningful. The prospect of not finding such work ready for you when you really would like it, is indeed a sad one; it shouldn't be wished on folks. Still, sometimes some things just don't happen, and so you have to look elsewhere for meaning. And if that's the case for you and everyone you know in Greece, well it's no good lying around complaining about it and pining for what's not going to happen. Much better to get out there and make something beautiful happen. Beauty is a wage as well.
And of course I don't just mean beauty in art (though that's an obvious place to find it). I mean beauty in all the places that we can find it and put it: gardens and public spaces, homes and offices. Beauty in our clothes and our furnishings, in our books and meals. In our childrens' toys. In our theater and literature. We must banish the notion that beauty is an extra to be occasionally indulged in, and never taken too seriously. No, it's an instinct in all of us. It's our human birthright, and we ought to claim that birthright and insist on its presence in our lives, doubly so if things in general aren't going well. Furthermore, if the world around us will not give beauty freely to us, then we have to make the beauty ourselves. This can be done, often or very little cost at all.
Please consider, dear readers, the possibility of adding beauty to your own lives. Sit back and dream up a more beauty-rich existence. Write a few possible projects down that might bring that richness into being. Start humble and small. For instance I've always delighted in the custom the Japanese have of covering their books with colored paper. I've often wanted to do that, with at least a few of my books, and maybe I will. The point is this though: honestly, forthrightly let's all pursue the work of adding beauty to our lives. Most likely, with a little persistence, something significant will come of it. The muses reward sincerity.
Until Tuesday the 24th!
HB
No comments:
Post a Comment