The aesthetic of living things

Build better life Build better worlds

I’m a very aesthetically driven person.

I like beautiful things. There is this attraction in me to something when someone can reach into the chaos that is the infinite design space of the universe and pull out interesting fashion, art, expression or even science. As human beings, we try so hard to create aesthetic around us but it’s really hard. Most attempts are no better than the blacklight glowing Bob Marley poster in that one undergrads dorm room, garish and obtrusive, don’t lie, you chilled there once. The world we live in is so forced. A constant conversation I have with one of my favorite artists is how much of human design is so unnatural. Squares everywhere, virtually nonexistent in nature they pervade our lives and our surroundings from furniture to sidewalks, even the food we eat. I do truly believe that this modern world we live in is pretty rough on our human psyche because it lacks curves where we need them, both literally and metaphorically. We don’t belong in this forced structure of a world. We belong in the beautiful chaos of nature surrounded by living things. Maybe that’s why being in it feels so healing?

It’s pretty amazing how beautiful life is. If you just take a deep breath and look for a minute, or maybe three, at a piece of grass or a pine cone or an ant. This is life not even trying. The humble beauty that is combined with function escapes no one. And then you try and contemplate something like an eye. Have you ever dissected an eye? Fuuuuck. You should. Your eyeball has a fucking lens in it. Like a fucking microscope. It’s pretty insane. If you think I’m using too much profanity here I don’t think you are actually comprehending what I am saying! Even so, life’s true beauty, what it is best at, is harmony among chaos and complexity.

Imagine trying to a build a world. We as humans, geniuses and masters of our environment have yet to come close to making even one single living cell. All living cells that exist have come from other living cells dividing. A world like the Earth exists in harmony because the smallest cells of bacteria and algae function in harmony with the largest of megaflora and megafauna. There is no doubt that this harmony of life, this harmony of a world is the greatest aesthetic we know. It is the greatest computational power. Constantly changing and adapting to weather, environment and other life. Living things contain technology and knowledge that we haven’t even begun to grasp. And instead of trying to understand it and learn from it we arrogantly destroy it in the name of building a world none of us really want to live in. A digital world in a screen that requires ecosystems to be destroyed so we can generate shit art that is a terrible facsimile of what nature has already created, of what we as humans can already create. Generally, when something is out of place in a world or in the wrong niche, it adapts or dies. That is, except humanity. Somehow, we have figured out how to live despite being the glowing Bob Marley poster of Earth. Our aesthetic is off and if aesthetic is anything, it is harmony. We humans don’t build worlds, we destroy worlds. There is very little aesthetic in our lives, so through sheer force of will we make art to placate the harmony we so desperately need.

Building with life has been one of my greatest joys. I futz around like an amateur god trying to understand the aesthetic of a single cell or a single organism, much less the aesthetic of a world. Something might have built this world we call Earth and if not, someday, something will build a world. Hopefully, their attempt doesn’t fail because they were building datacenters and mining imaginary currencies that eat at the soul of life.

We can build life. We could build worlds. But none of us can do it without understanding the aesthetic that is living things and their harmony.