Zooming into the boundary of a simulated Mandelbrot set. I argue the infinitely iterated structures of fractals mirror the infinitely deep cycles of Beauty intrinsic to existence.
"He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty
As I approach middle age, I believe it would be prudent to formalize a framework to guide the remaining years I have left on this planet.1 This essay will seek both to instantiate and defend my chosen life philosophy.
The framework I have arrived at can be summarized as: Appreciate Beauty. I posit two statements. First, the Beauty of existence is nearly infinite both in breadth and depth. Second, a fulfilling life can be found in one that stands in constant appreciation of this Beauty.
Beauty is a word notoriously difficult to define.2 Personally, I find Beauty in detail. I garner deep aesthetic satisfaction from perceiving (or at least attempting to perceive) the constellation of stories that surround and subsume me. Perhaps this is a natural byproduct from my love of reading, but I also believe this to be a fairly universal feeling inherent to a species of storytellers. Thus, I define Beauty as follows:
Beauty: the magnificence inherent in the interweaving stories and histories of every living and non-living entity in the Universe
The definition anyone employs can and should vary, this interpretation merely emphasizes those aspects I find to be most important.
An example might be best to illustrate what I mean. Imagine a fairly common scenario: 2 friends are sharing a meal at a restaurant.
On its face, the premise seems trivial; but let us deconstruct it. Realize these 2 individuals did not appear out of thin air. Each are the product of thousands of generations that came before them. Think of all those lives, all those lovers, all those experiences, all those stories. Imagine all the chance encounters and deliberate decisions that culminated in this particular point in space and time.
Now consider the food on their plate. Feel the hands of those who harvested the crops and fed the animals; remind yourself each pair of hands also belonged to someone with their own uniquely and infinitely complex life and pedigree thousands of generations deep. Contemplate the crop, the seed buried in the warm soil and irrigated by water piped from afar. Picture the seedling and the first day it burst to the sky, the nights it spent under the stars, the pesticide it was relentlessly doused in, the ripening fruit, the unceremonious harvesting. See the animal, first born, then fattened, then slaughtered. Remember the trucker who tirelessly drove through the night to get this produce and meat to the wholesale market and the mild-mannered middle manager at a logistics company who directed his route. Step into the market as it opens and hear the sellers hawking their wares. Become the eldest daughter of the restaurant owner, who every Sunday at 5 in the morning, enters this coliseum battling to secure the freshest ingredients for her family's restaurant.
Imagine the kitchen an hour ago as her father took those raw ingredients and created something wholly new from them. Think about the generational knowledge that went into the recipe he adheres to today. Taste the multitude of people, cultures, and flavors that melded together to create this one meal in this one restaurant on this one night by this one old man. Feel the father's pride as he secures an education for his children, sends money back home to his family, and shares his country's cuisine with his new nation.
Cast your mind back in time, and picture the street before this restaurant existed. Who used to live here, and what were their stories? Go farther still; back to the pre-human era, what magnificent creatures called this place home? How many of those beings never left behind a fossil and will forever be shrouded in the veil of the past? Which geologic processes yielded this patch of land we sit on today?
Now shoot forward, watch the eldest daughter inherit the restaurant and build upon her father's dream. Attend the opening ceremony of their new location and cry alongside her mother who knows her late husband is watching from above.
This is to say nothing of the other diners; each the culmination of their own infinite histories. And finally understand that for all the depth captured in this one moment; all over the world, similar scenes are playing out millions of times over, each as uniquely beautiful as the last.
Did I take some artistic liberties with this thought experiment? Probably a couple, but the point I am trying to make is this: the vast majority of seemingly trivial moments on this planet are; in reality, suffused with near infinite history, connection, and meaning. I posit that the Beauty of this world is boundless both in breadth and depth. I can go to nearly any of the near-infinite places on this planet and find points, each containing near-infinite Beauty.
When I say Appreciate Beauty, all I am attempting to do is to realize this fact. Though it is impossible to pay complete witness to the Beauty inherent to most moments, my missive is merely meant to encourage us to never forget the Beauty surrounding us.
Zooming into the boundary of a simulated Mandelbrot set. I argue the infinitely iterated structures of fractals mirror the infinitely deep cycles of Beauty intrinsic to existence.
To Appreciate Beauty is to live with eyes wide open. To drink eagerly from the cup of life, and to take nothing in this world for granted. When one truly appreciates Beauty, the mundane becomes magical and to live is to weave one's own thread into the Universal tapestry.
But why do I believe feeling this appreciation is important? Why do I think appreciating Beauty is commiserate to living a fulfilling life? First, I believe it invites a more engaged life where every moment serves as an invitation to thoughfully connect with the world. Second, I argue it nurtures a profound sense of gratitude towards each other and the Universe.
The benefit of an engaged life might seem counterintuitive; the phrase Appreciate Beauty evokes a sense of passive observation. But I don't believe this to be the case. I believe appreciation is deepened through active interrogation. Take the example from before, if you do not take the time to talk to the server or waiter you would never learn the family's story. If you never truly taste the food, you would never consider the thousands of years of historical mingling reflected in each flavor. If you never pause to consider the history of the land you sit upon, you would never value its experiences. And if you had never invited your friend to dinner in the first place, then none of this appreciation would have even been possible.
Inaction breeds ignorance, ignorance begets apathy, and apathy is the antithesis of appreciation.3 Appreciation demands engagement. It is easy to forget how beautiful this world can be, it is profoundly more difficult to consciously and continually remind oneself of that fact. But putting in that work; in my experience, creates a more thoughtful and intentional existence. Whether or not such an existence is desirable is up to the individual. But I believe it is.
When one earnestly confronts the sheer volume of Beauty in existence, I find gratitude to be a difficult emotion to suppress. Yet, the philosophical consensus is that gratitude is traditionally directed to individuals for actions that benefit us. The justification is based on a notion of reciprocity - wherein I express gratitude to a benefactor through some beneficial action, i.e. 'returning the favor'.4 This framework doesn't easily apply to the Beauty that permeates the Universe, which often lacks a direct agent.5
Many find resolution to this dilemma via religion, directing their gratitude towards a deity and manifesting it through religious practice. My approach shares a similar spirit, but is not tied to a doctrine: I direct my gratitude to the Universe itself. And in the absence of explicit guidance from the Universe, I elect to 'return the favor' by minimizing ugliness.
When I was younger, I used to believe that ugliness did not exist; I used to believe my inability to find the Beauty in a given moment merely reflected my own failure to look hard enough. I now believe that this perspective was born from my own immaturity.6 I have seen enough of the world to have faith that ugliness exists.
It is worth noting that I do not believe ugliness and Beauty to be zero-sum, both can and do exist independently. When confronted with the spectra of phenomena like biodiversity collapse, racism, poverty, or sexism; phenomena I do believe to be ugly, it can be tempting to dismiss these moments and individuals as lost causes. In some cases they are, but the existence of ugliness should be treated as an invitation to cultivate the Beauty that does surround and pervade existence.
It is not always easy to do so, but I believe each of us can find strength in our faith that Beauty is the default; and deviations from that are aberrations within our power to control.7
I cannot imagine a greater tragedy than the Universe, so full of Beauty, going unacknowledged and unappreciated. Like an unheard tree falling in a dark forest; without an audience, this Beauty is never fully realized.8
Perhaps the most difficult consequence of adopting this philosophy has been a small, but perpetual, feeling of inadequacy towards myself for not being able to completely capture the Beauty of a particular moment. This is a natural consequence of my argument: if Beauty is truly infinite, then my finite time on this planet is necessarily insufficient to acknowledge the totality of it. I think the solution to this dilemma lies in the realization that this impossibility is itself Beautiful. That the wellspring of Beauty is infinite does not mean one must gorge themselves on it to the point of sickness; the well will always exist and never run dry and we should take solace in its immortality.
No matter our path, there will always be Beauty. It is just up to us to look for it.
I think this is a useful exercise for anyone to engage in: (1) it forces people to identify what they find important in life (2) once a framework is constructed, one can use it to alleviate the burden of choice associated with the myriad decisions inherent in living. Any future decision can be distilled to the simple litmus test: Would this lead to a more fulfilling life, per my definition?↩︎
The OED lists the following as one of their definitions: "That quality of a person or thing which is highly pleasing or satisfying to the mind." My definition merely clarifies that which I find most pleasing. Of interest, in Ralph Waldo Emerson's Beauty, he decides not to define Beauty; instead opting to enumerate some of its qualities. I should also note that my definition does not include aesthetic beauty (say the beauty found in a mountain range), this does not mean I do not find these aspects beautiful; merely they are not included in the definition of my capital 'B' 'Beauty'↩︎
The scientific method represents a way to understand our Universe; and therefore, a way to appreciate that Beauty present around us. What is more beautiful than LIFE, and this why I am a biologist.↩︎
This is the difference between prepositional and propositional gratitude. Prepositional gratitude can be expressed as: Y is grateful to R for φ-ing. For example, I (Y) am grateful to Usman (R) for reading an essay draft (φ-ing). Alternatively, propositional gratitude can be expressed as: Y is grateful that p. In the latter, some beneficial circumstance, for example, the nice weather (p), exists that I (Y) am thankful for. In the latter, there is not a clear individual to direct my gratitude for; I am merely thankful that a beneficial circumstance has arisen. See here for more on this.↩︎
It's worth noting that expressing 'gratitude' is consistently proven as one of the best ways to mitigate depression & anxiety, relieve stress, and improve heart health.↩︎
One of the first things I do while learning a new language is to find the best replacement for 'amazing'. This is more than a direct translation, the act of saying it in the local accent should also convey that same splendor. In French, 'INcroyable'. In Italian, 'perFEto'. In Hindi, 'shabAsh'. In Kinyarwanda, "biratanGAje'. In German, 'GEil ALte'. In Urdu, 'ZAbardast'.↩︎
Accepting this was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.↩︎
I find it a cruel joke that one of the only species capable of appreciating Beauty, is also the primary (possibly only?) source of ugliness in this world.↩︎
An important corollary of this is the obligation to help deepen others' appreciation of Beauty. If you have talked to me for any significant period of time you will have likely heard me say certain words/phrases or make particular hand gestures. These habits are my (admittedly opaque) attempt to physically express and share the Beauty I see in any given moment. ↩︎
Thanks to Usman Enam and Rexhebije Kadriu for reading drafts.
Arya Kaul (C) now - forever -> more essays