Splash No. 195 - Beyond Beauty

Beyond Beauty

A few weeks ago, I went on a walk with a friend who was visiting the city. We walked along the Embarcadero, the roadway that runs alongside San Francisco Bay, just before the sun began its descent into the horizon. As we walked, I guided her to specific photo spots, perfect for capturing the vistas. I’ve taken so many pictures of the Bay Bridge at golden hour, I’ve taken so many pictures of the trees I love in my local park. I wish that the beauty from those moments could penetrate my heart, envelop every cell of my being, and let me glow. It feels almost virtuous to be able to behold such gorgeous mundanities and so jarring when they disappear. The sunlight filtered through the clouds, the haziness of the air, the colors that seem beyond perception, it feels like such a view could render life itself simple and perfect and easy. Couldn’t we fix everything if we could all stop and savor this beauty? But no, the moment passes and we hold an imperfect pixelized copy to sit along the endless stream of copies. 

I’ve found myself rekindling my social media habits again, which never ends well. When it comes to apps like TikTok and Instagram, I imagine that surrounding myself with the beautiful content of gorgeous photography, masterful outfits, and fit bodies will move me further along the path to reaching those worlds. Perhaps immersing myself into these worlds could serve as vision boards that subconsciously guide my life to one more beautiful. My plans are deeply flawed — the beautiful worlds are barely real (who knows what exists just out of view of the camera), and my subconscious mind cannot take the actions to reach what I desire. So my time goes, lost to my thumb.

My other social media worlds of Reddit and Twitter offer the opposite of beauty and desire: an endless well of fear and despair that would send me running back to my faulty facsimile of beauty. I’m thinking about what Seneca said, “You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.” Never before had I considered how these vices dictated my life — one that pulls me away from action, one that pulls me toward it. I could stare at my desires endlessly, ignoring the passage of time, especially to escape from my fears about the fragility of everything.

The moments that feel more real (emptying my brain onto the page, glowing conversations with friends or soon-to-be friends) push these vices to the background but never vanquish them fully. My heart is calm among the words but in the silences I fear writing something uninteresting or derivative, saying something stupid or rude; I desire to be perceived as noble and intelligent and brave and perfect. Yet these are achievable, even as I stumble over my words. There’s a possibility in front of me to move towards what I desire and push past that that I fear. These desires hold more than the empty beauty I’ve been fixated on, even if they reflect my vanity. 

I was meant for more than just creating beauty, art was meant for more than just creating beauty. I want to move towards the real — the mess and ugliness of life is inevitable, and I’ve often focused on spinning anything and everything positively, in calming and pretty ways. Yet, sometimes those letters don’t reflect how I really feel, a false beauty that’s more aspirational than honest. And even when I resonate with the positive, I still end every other letter with a “maybe” or “perhaps,” rather than coming out with what I want to say. I’d like to embrace simply saying things outright. Today, I move to create beyond just beauty.
 

Drops of the Week
 

• PLAYLIST - songs to forget who you are - made an extremely chaotic playlist for no reason, not sure if I fully recommend listening to it.

• ARTICLE - "Why it all feels like too much" by Kate Lindsay - a partial inspiration for today's letter, this piece digs into the feelings of general overwhelm and catastrophe

• POEM - "The Wholeness" by Ana Blandiana  - "To be whole—to be wholeness"

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More than just a sight to behold,
Nikhil