Life Aesthetics: Ritual and Incident
Daily Ritual as a container to craft a life aesthetic
The Beautiful Life Beyond Goodnesses and Truths
There is the beautiful life that is less than good and right, and there is the beautiful life that is more than true and right. Beauty can illuminate the meta-systematic adjudication of different kinds of goodness (between moral systems) and truths (between rational systems). What follows is a method that I’ve used for decades to craft my personal aesthetic. Maybe it will be interesting to you too?
This approach comes from instrumentalizing the words of Nietzsche:
What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence” ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”
This is the principle of eternal return.
People craft daily rituals for many purposes: to be better. To fulfill their obligations. To achieve some goal. Here, the daily ritual serves to be part of an interactive process of refining one’s aesthetic taste in living.
Here, we realize that the eternal return as an orientation in this moment: here-and-now, I would will that this moment be eternally repeated, realizing that one’s aesthetic taste may change is the very next moment.
Developing aesthetic taste in your life is a matter of a feedback loop between “what you are going for, artistically” and “how it turns out”. There is a limit to theoretical calibration, so start anywhere and let your daily ritual develop as your taste develops. There is never a final aesthetic, just an ever-responsive evolving aesthetic
Daily ritual is a foundation in life. It is best leavened with the appropriate amount of incident, the startling fresh movement in life. It is the way of dullards to be endlessly repetitive in life, the obverse of the way of the excitement junkies to be endlessly novel. The former is not in accord with aesthetic development because pure repetition is intrinsically without development, the latter is not in accord because an aesthetic requires some repeating patterns. Sensitivity of how much incident to leaven ritual with is another matter of aesthetic taste to cultivate.
Minimizing Structure and Allowing Evolution
To craft an aesthetic, it is best to use the minimum structure. Ideally, one’s whole artist’s statement can be rewritten from memory anytime. For most people, a single sheet of paper is more than enough.
Consider how much structure is minimal. For example, scheduling specific activities defines more structure than does defining a loose sequence of activities through the day, which is in turn more structured than simply noting what life themes you would like to touch on each day. Use the appropriate amount of structure for where you are now but always be exploring having less structure that still holds an aesthetic! An aesthetic will shine through any details of life, so know that no detail is critical.
Crafting an aesthetic has no final destination. Perhaps you are an artist of life who will evolve a powerful style that you then maintain, fitting the times, through the end of your life. Perhaps, you will find yourself one day veering toward a radically new style, as some artists have.
The Summary Orientation
This is the consideration to touch, live, and evolve every day:
What would it mean to live beautifully today, by the light of my own aesthetics?
Addendum: Tips on Getting Started
Consider starting with only using poetic and metaphorical language, nothing concrete at first…it makes a huge difference to be like a lighthouse that illuminates the night versus to be as Marc Anthony talking of Caesar’s death.
And don’t settle on a singular poetic expression, find a few that form a coherent palette, or a pleasing incoherence.
Don’t commit the error of under-aestheticization.
Feeling around for deep resonance with these poetic expressions may require much writing and re-writing. The surest measure is that you are deeply moved by your own words.
You can add in concrete language perhaps after a few weeks, when you can recognize when you are as moved by specific concreteness as you are by poetic expression.
Be careful about who you share your personal aesthetic with unless you’ve reached sufficient confidence in life to not be perturbed by misunderstanding or distaste. Often it is best to simply keep it private.
This is the “writing” of the ephemeral poetry that displays as “you”.