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Updated 8 years ago,September 11, 2017
Anyone can see beauty in beautiful things.
Its not that hard.
To see the preciousness of a small child and be warmed by their innocence.
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Or to find peace in the stillness of an untouched meadow.
When these scenes find you or we set out to find them, its a wonderful experience.
In those moments, we feel both small and big, free and connected.
The problem of course is that in life there arent enough of these moments.
Last week, I wrote about howthe key to happiness is to realize that everything sucks.
If you might see things objectively and clearly, youll be more content, less empty, less tempted.
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In fact, it too is the key to happiness.
The soft pawprints of a cat on the dusty trunk of a car.
The hot steam wafting from the sewer grates on a New York City morning.
The smell of asphalt just as the rain begins to fall.
But which is more common?
Which will you find in front of you more often?
A walk down the street when the music seems to line up exactly with the rhythm of events.
What had to happen for us to be here, on this planet, in this moment.
Both make ordinary situations just as beautiful as epic ones.
We could thank his private rhetoric teacher, Marcus Cornelius Fronto, for the imagery in these vivid passages.
The economist Russ Roberts wrote a poem recentlycalled Wonder, Breadthat is a brilliant illustration of this practice.
How did they know?
Who is the they that made it?
Why did they do such a good job?
Even genuinely bad situations can be made to be beautiful.
Stepping back to see the passion and animation in another persons anger.
Laughing at the perfectness of another thing that could go wrong, going wrong.
Acknowledging the sheer awesome of a natural disaster.
Isnt that far better than seeing the world as some dark place?
Both are essential, both are the job of the philosopher.
And liveswellwhile they are alive.
There is clarity in seeing what others cant see, in finding grace and harmony in places others overlook.
Most of all, there is happiness.
