What is beautiful
The question of aesthetics in relation to deep transformations has been occupying my mind for a long time. There are so many reasons for it. My mind takes me back to my communications with my grandmother when I stepped on the path of simple living. To her, my mode of living represented poverty. What I considered beautiful clashed with what was beautiful to her. My mind also takes me back to the moment when a fellow human told me that I was not doing my best to be attractive to men. His idea of a beautiful woman clashed with my ideas and aspirations. I am thinking about my book cover. What did I want to communicate? What will my fellow humans think about a book cover that is muted, calming and gentle rather than bright and trying to catch one's attention in the sea of other books?
Talking about aesthetics and taste is difficult. It's a contentious topic. There is an illusion that everyone is free to choose amongst thousands of options. But our taste is conditioned by the dominant, consumerist culture from our first days on Earth. Why do so many humans find expensive jewellery, plastic objects, artificial colours beautiful while undyed cotton is dull, celeriac root is blemished, freckly skin is imperfect?
Since a young fellow human, my partner's child from his previous relationship, came into my life, I began to think more about the relationship between objects, consumer culture, and children. There is an assumption that children can be brought up in this consumer culture, but later in life they will be free to choose their own path. I have my doubts about children choosing simplicity later in life if they have been taking part in consumerism. When my fellow humans say to me that it is difficult and even impossible to protect children from consumerism, I understand and empathise with this. I think about my own childhood, and I believe that the reason I was not interested in conventional toys was because what was readily available to me (magical nature, non-human beings) was infinitely more beautiful and interesting. Perhaps my life would have unfolded differently if I lived in a city instead.
I think a lot about what I consider beautiful. Undyed fabrics, naturally dyed fabrics, small holes and stains, stones I brought home from Nature. I was looking around my home and I told my partner that I love the jar that came with organic pasta sauce, the vegetables, the stains on our home textiles. I love the half-used bars of soap, the small wrinkles on my face, the texture of undyed cotton canvas bag. The capitalist system does not encourage us to see beauty in these things.
