How to find Joy in the Unknown? Let Beauty be our guide
On how Beauty transports us from a world of gray to dazzling technicolor
Friends, so much in the past 20 months has died — physically and psychically. In the space that’s opened up between what once was and what’s to come, at times I find myself anxious about the future. With so much falling away, I’ve been wondering: how do we find a path forward in the unknown? Looking back at other thresholds in my life, I’ve come to trust again that Beauty — if we can attune to it — can lead us out of the wilderness toward a more joyful future. Much love, M.
PS, As always, I love hearing your reactions and questions.
As a kid, I delighted in dirt — discovering endless wonder in rocks, insects and plants. I’d get lost in the infinite worlds in the handfuls of earth that my small hands dug up from my childhood home’s tiny backyard. I felt like I hit the jackpot whenever I found shards of mica or shiny obsidian. And from the treasures I unearthed, I’d build rock skyscrapers that towered high into the sky (even if an adult’s eye only measured their height in inches).
That time in the dirt taught me to be a virtuoso of seeing the world up close, slowly, and with all of my senses fully embodied.
Later, as I grew older my world grew bigger. It was exciting; but with ever growing expectations and responsibilities associated with “adulting”, there was no longer time for frivolous things like marveling at nature, or letting curiosity guide my attention over aimless afternoons.
Everything had to have a purpose because real adults, I learned, are too busy for beauty.
So over years, the doors to beauty and wonder that once seemed endless and everywhere became harder to find. Or, in the off chance I glimpsed a door — perhaps in the way the afternoon sun graced the skyscrapers I worked in, or in the glint of mica cemented in the sidewalk — I no longer had time to linger long enough to step through.
Real adults I learned were productive, busy, and tired.
So, I became obsessed with making the most of precious time. Tips and tricks from productivity gurus seemed to promise that by mastering time I could overcome the limits of time. Transcendence came from GTD: getting things done.
Yet, as masterful as I became at GTD, over years, I felt overwhelmed by the tyranny of my always looming to-do list; and underwhelmed by the hollow achievement that came along with dutifully checking boxes.
I had carefully followed the socially agreed upon map for the path to the good life. And yet, instead of the promised land, I ended up in what Piero Ferrucci termed the dusty “wasteland of the soul”.
For my father, the promised land lay at the end of time — that is, in retirement.
He dutifully worked for decades at the same company, saving assiduously to retire early. Retirement was, in his mind, freedom at the end of a very long road of “adulting”. He dreamed of going to cooking school, taking classes at the local college, and maybe becoming a ski bum.
Yet, life had different plans for him.
Just a few months before he was set to retire, he suddenly collapsed and died from a heart attack at the age of 61. He was seemingly healthy, but had the same underlying conditions we all share: being human and vulnerably mortal.
So, on the doorstep of the promised land, he never got to enter its gleaming gates.
For me, it felt like a double loss — to feel unmoored as a daughter without a father, and to grieve the freedom that he could almost taste. Just as transcendence had not come from my attempts to master time, it also eluded my dad at the end of his time.
And so, for many months after his death, I was mostly numb — operating on auto pilot, and going through the motions to get by. I was still checking things off my to-do list, but life in the wilderness of grief felt oppressively gray.
Even though the cloud cover felt thick most days, one day the sun unexpectedly broke through.
You see, about nine months after my dad’s death, I woke up one morning utterly captivated by everything I experienced. Looking out my window, I was stunned by the perfection of the leaves fluttering on the tree outside; their shade of green was the most enchanting I’d ever seen. When I rolled out of bed, every step I took was the most glorious I’d ever taken. And when I ate my morning oatmeal, each spoon was the most luscious I’d ever enjoyed.
Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I was transported from a world of drab gray to dazzling technicolor. A door opened to an alternate reality that co-existed with the one I’d been in all along. The difference was I tuned to the world through the lens of beauty: up close and savored though all of my senses.
I will never know why the clouds parted that day. But they did. And I’m grateful for how beauty hit my reset button on life.
And just like Dorothy’s visit to Oz, the beauty of that morning didn’t last forever. But that was all I needed.
Even a small dose of beauty is the most healing of tonics.
Glimpsing a vivid alternative to my own version of a drab Kansas, it restored the wonder I had known so intimately in childhood. Beauty wasn’t going to bring my dad back from death, but its enchantment nourished my love of life again. It grounded me not in the possibility of some distant horizon, but where I already was.
Beauty brought me back Home.
I just needed to see the door to step through.
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