A Desire for the Beautiful Experience

 

Four summers ago, while on a class trip to Paris, I find myself wandering along the Seine River with a handful of friends in the late afternoon. Given an hour of freedom before returning for dinner, we decide to wander among the street vendors that line the river in the name of sightseeing and exploration. As we reach the end of the street, a small bookstore is tucked away in a corner off to the right, concealed in such a way makes it easily missable. We cross under an archway of trees and follow a cobblestone sidewalk to the front of the store, once hidden by the branches overhead.  The evergreen-colored storefront is cornered against the white cement walls that extend upwards toward the sky, interrupted by subtle string lights hanging from the surrounding branches. Antique tables are scattered near the store’s entrance, cluttered around bookshelves and displays. A line of five or so people stand outside the front entranceway, and my friends and I file into line behind them. The storefront is nothing less than enchanting, and I feel a swell of excitement rush through me as I stand in line, despite not knowing what I will find inside.

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Fast forward to a year and a half later, where I sit huddled over textbooks and notepaper at a window seat just after dark. Now in college, I’ve identified coffee shops as my preferred places to study, and consistently seek them out whenever I'm in need of relaxation and a dose of productivity—in the rare moments that the two are able to coexist. This coffee shop in particular is one of my favorite places to go, particularly after the sun disappears and the interior becomes illuminated by the small lights lining the wall displays. Having just completed the first week of December, the window is lined with string lights and snowflake decals, exhibiting the holiday spirit that has completely encompassed Ann Arbor. The reflection of the small lights in the window intermingle with the bulbs lining the Michigan Theater marquee beyond the glass. As I copy down notes with my coffee resting beside me, I feel embraced in a sense of warmth and content as I continue studying—an impressive feat considering the multitude of final exams I have lingering on the horizon.

 

A few months and a new semester later, I find myself walking across campus towards North Quad for my 8:00 a.m. discussion section. Having missed my alarm and walked into sub-freezing temperatures with a head of hair not quite dry from my shower, I stomp through the aftermath of an overnight snowfall with a less than pleasant disposition. After ten minutes into my fifteen-minute walk to class, I realize that I’ve spent the entirety of my commute with my head down, headphones in, and eyes focused on the snow-covered pavement ahead of me. It isn't until I pass the Michigan League that I remove my headphones, pick my head up and acknowledge the setting around me. An opaque layer of snow lines the sidewalks and tops of bushes, and the Michigan League itself—a red brick structure with grand, cement lined windows—hovers between the uniform frosty gray of both the ground and the sky. Street lamps scattered on the sidewalk contribute a faint, warm glow to the scene, tracing the pathways into snowy oblivion. The silence and stillness surrounding me takes my breath away, and my initial reluctance to leave the residence hall that morning becomes a hesitancy to continue on my commute and leave the glowing landscape in my snow-lined tracks.

 

Looking back on these three experiences, each reveals a moment of beauty that is hard to articulate. Not one takes my breath away with their magnificence and grandeur; they are simple moments exhibiting small but powerful hints of intriguing contentment. I am always fascinated by these moments, ones that are completely unexpected but carry an immediate sign that this moment is one to be remembered, ones to be appreciated. Their presence is almost addictive, demanding that the experience be categorized and identified, so that it can claim more of a presence in my life. The problem, however, is that the fleeting nature of these moments is arguably what makes them so special.

 

While different labels have been given to such an occurrence, the term “beautiful experience,” has most resonated with me. The idea of a breakaway from actuality resonates with anyone who has found themselves cornered by reality, and thus can add great value to the life of those who wish to embrace it.

 

I wish to explore the nature of these so-called beautiful experiences; what they are, why they elicit the reactions they do, and why they are so fleeting—perhaps more so in today’s technological-driven world. More importantly, I crave the understanding of how to create more opportunities for them in my own life, if there is such a way.

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Perhaps the first obstacle in trying to understand this phenomenon and its effects on my life is to understand what it actually is. In other words, in collecting a number of instances of which I would characterize a beautiful experience, what did they all have in common? What similarities were woven through each moment? Further, are there specific aspects that serve as prerequisites to having a beautiful experience?

 

A common theme in moments that have stuck with me has been a feeling of easiness that appeared without notice; namely, a sense of unexpected simplicity. Whether I had low expectations to begin with or none at all, the beauty of the moment took me by surprise and therefore solidified its importance in the nature of the experience. If you think about it, it is more likely to experience an unexpected heightening of senses when in an unassuming environment rather than, for example, walking through the grandeur of the Versailles gardens. In a setting in which beauty is expected, one may still have a reaction, but it will be more surprising than that of a modest environment.

 

Whenever I visit my grandparents’ house around the holiday season, I am always in love with the simplicity with which they decorate for the season. My family and I drive down to their house in rural Ohio every year to spend Christmas Eve among family and good food. I look back on those trips with fond memories, particularly when thinking of everyone gathered in the living room at dusk. Garland borders the tops of the walls and white lights frame the windows, while Frank Sinatra Christmas music blends in with the murmurs of conversation. The television is turned to whatever Christmas movie is on cable at the moment, or sometimes turned to the Yule Log—a channel showing continuous footage of a burning fireplace (not the most authentic of sorts, but it is a fond memory nonetheless). The combination of the decorations’ simple elegance and the natural conversation taking place makes this memory particularly beautiful in my mind—as it encompasses the idea that the most simple of surroundings can create feelings of intense beauty.

 

When I consider possible reasons as to why simplicity would yield such strong emotions, I think of the relevance of an attraction and appreciation to things that require little to no effort. In my life, I often find aesthetic pleasure in things that are plain and well kept yet do not sacrifice good design. For example, I find myself attracted to websites whose designs’ exhibit nice font, cohesive color schemes, and lots of white space. The organization and design of such a website is impressive, but perhaps even more impressive is the notion that it took significant effort to design such an appearance—no matter how simple it may look. Thus, perhaps the appeal of unexpected simplicity yielding a beautiful experience is not necessary an appreciation for the minimalistic, but rather the acknowledgement that someone considered and valued the potential for beauty in the simplistic, instead of just succumbing to the dramatic and luxurious.

 

In addition to simplicity, there also seems to be an inherent uniqueness to the concept of a beautiful experience. It is the instances in which one feels as though their experience has only been encountered—or perhaps, encountered to a similar degree—by a select few, if anyone. This also implies a personal aspect to the beautiful experience, as each individual brings their own likes, dislikes, and personality, to name a few, to any moment in life.

 

I believe the unique aspect of these experiences yield some of the most memorable times in one’s life, thus producing the beautiful experience; the inhibition of screaming along lyrics at your favorite musician’s concert, the illumination of fireflies set against a dark backdrop of a late night bonfire with friends, or the enlightenment that accompanies a meaningful and insightful conversation with a confidant. However, just as memories vary from person to person, so too do the standards for which one considers something to be beautiful. While one person may look at a forest landscape with great awe and admiration, they may find an image of a sunset—perhaps igniting emotion in another individual—as not necessarily carrying any notable impact.

 

Why is this differing of standards and values significant? Perhaps it carries implications for the contribution that familiarity lends to an experience. It may be easier and more natural to react to moments in which one is somewhat familiar with, whether they have experienced something similar or were exposed to such an instance through word-of-mouth. Thus, it may be possible that no beautiful experience can take place without the individual being primed for it beforehand. This may be one explanation for why some individuals may see beauty in an experience that has no meaning for another; if individuals have not been primed for a beautiful experience, there is no reason as to why they should react in the first place. Thus, this acknowledgment further the argument that the unique nature of an individuals and their own experiences create different reactions to certain moments. Despite the differences, however, there seems to be certain pattern for the reasons as to which people find things beautiful, specifically in the attributes of an experience that one admires and appreciates.

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In another regard, perhaps the beauty of each moment lies in the emotions that the experience carries. This is more of an individualistic approach to the “beautiful experience,” but is valid nonetheless. Emotions, perhaps more so than anything, have the ability to arrest our attention and separate us from the reality at hand, arguably one of the main interpretations of a beautiful experience. Ken Taylor, creator of the philosophy-focused blog Philosophy Talk, but it simply when he argued that “being in the presence of a beautiful thing is transporting . . . it has the power to take over our consciousness and move us to new places in unexpected ways.” This journey obviously isn’t a physical one, so it must rely on the strength of emotions to make a lasting impact. 

 

In discussing the emotional role in beautiful experiences, take, for example, the three experiences described at the beginning of this essay. The storefront represented a “hidden gem” that was unassuming from afar, but exuded adventure and intrigue once you got close enough to see the books lining the exterior walls and the people waiting apprehensively to enter inside. The window seat on that December night was a quiet retreat in the midst of a busy atmosphere, lined with string lights that distracted from the copious amounts of final exams and holiday shopping that loomed on the horizon. The snow-lined landscape on that early morning was a moment of appreciation in an otherwise miserable morning, one that had the unlikely power to turn my thoughts away from the morning’s mishaps and towards a sense of beauty, silence, and stillness. Each image transported me away from reality and towards a place where my senses were heightened to the surrounding beauty, beauty that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

 

What I adore most about the argument for the emotional aspect of a beautiful experience is that this perspective feeds into the notion that a beautiful experience may rely on the subjective. In other words, while I can contemplate more and more about the foundations of a beautiful experience (as I’ve admittedly been doing for the past few pages), in the end, emotions and their interpretations vary from person to person. This ties in nicely to the previous consideration of uniqueness in witnessing a beautiful experience, and how the standards as to what is considered “beautiful” may vary from person to person.

 

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Yet some may claim that beautiful, in some sense, is objective. While some, in support of the subjective beautiful experience, may state that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” there are things—certain music or art, for example—that are thought to be beautiful by a large majority. The phrases “beauty is eternal” or “beauty is truth” conveys some objective aspect in the question of what is beautiful. In the objective sense, a beautiful experience only exists if it contains some universal “truth,” or something that every person can relate to as beautiful.

 

A subjective beautiful doesn’t necessarily deny this concept of truth. The distinction, however, is that it places what is “true” in context of an individual’s experience. Say, for example, I am describing a recent trip to the ocean in the context of one of the few beautiful experiences of my life. I describe the smells, the rush of the wind and waves in tandem with the sun shining as one of the most incredibly beautiful things I have ever witnessed. After hearing about my experience, no one would deny that the setting in which I found myself is not “beautiful.” My friend listening, however, may have great fear of drowning, and therefore would never step foot near an ocean. Just because she is not able to see the ocean as beautiful in the way that I can, she cannot deny the truth that my experience is considered to be beautiful. The beauty I experienced during my trip to the ocean is completely subjective, in the way it relies on my own likes, tastes, and feelings.

 

Thus, the very nature of a beautiful experience being an experience, specifically, makes it one of subjective nature. An experience is often shaped by individual perspective, worldviews, and emotions that all carry personal implications. We as a society can call something “beautiful,” but only in a way that suggests a perceived majority of people think the same way—but never the population as a whole. Each person has the capacity to see the beauty in a unique way, and I believe that disregard of this consideration is detrimental to the value of beautiful experiences themselves.

 

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Reflecting on the past few paragraphs, there are a variety of attributes that have characterized beautiful experiences in my own life. In conjunction with the last argument of the subjective nature of beauty, one can say that these attributes are unique to my own worldviews and tastes, producing incredible meaning only when considered through my own perspectives. This begs the question, given their subjective nature, how does one share these beautiful experiences with others? Recently, and most evidently, social media has been one answer. Though social media platforms have brought immense, and mostly positive, societal and cultural changes to the way we interact and share with others, it does have consequences when it comes to sharing experiences with others.

 

In encountering the beautiful experiences of others, you cannot help but privilege your own. Once one has encountered a beautiful experience for themselves, any deviation as experienced by another becomes less valid. There is still truth in another’s beautiful experience—as explained through a subjective lens—but you can’t help but privilege your own experience when analyzing someone else’s. In other words, your encounter becomes a standard to which other experiences are measured.

 

An example. I note exploring the cliffs of Monaco and looking out into the Mediterranean Sea as one of the most awe-inspiring moments of my life. Though I had only stopped the car for a short amount of time on my way to visit Monte Carlo, looking out into the vast horizon and the bright blue sky, contrasted by the brightly colored roofs and gardens of the houses below, is surely an image I will never forget. As a result, whenever I see pictures of or hear stories about another’s visit to the cliffs of Monaco, my mind immediately wanders to thoughts of my own experience. This doesn’t happen selfishly, but rather as a well-intentioned attempt to better understand the feelings and emotions conveyed in the storytelling of the experience. In doing so, however, I naturally consider the similarities between my experience and that of someone else’s; the more similarities I find, the more beautiful the experience. In other words, because I think so highly of my own experience, others’ experiences will be measured in comparison to my own, with those exhibiting more similarities receiving a higher degree of beauty and admiration.

 

Thus, while social media argues the appreciation of the experiences of others, it is more limiting then it lets on. The magnitude of access to others' experiences leads us to believe that we are acknowledging and truly appreciating those moments, when in reality, this is not necessarily the case—we are merely determining our admiration based on how similar they are to our own experiences, of which we consider to be the ideal.

 

While social media limits one’s true engagement with beautiful experiences, I’d like to note that it is not exclusively problematic. Social media does have the ability to introduce opportunities for beautiful experiences. For instance, when others post about their own emotions and thoughts in describing their experience, their words may trigger reflection of one's own beautiful experiences. Having said this, it is important that we not view the documentation of experiences on social media as a replacement for interaction with beautiful experiences in the physical sense. As previously argued, the foundation of the beautiful experience is based in the engagement of the emotional and the heightening of the senses, both of which cannot be practiced in front of a screen. Thus, while social media may provide a beneficial catalyst to increase the emergence of opportunities for beautiful experiences, there is still value in interacting with the world at a level that yields an appreciation for beauty and emotion.

 

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Having introduced a number of attributes that can be likely assumed of most beautiful experiences, it is natural to acknowledge the reason for seeking out beautiful experiences in the first place. In an obvious sense, experiencing beautiful things holds immense value—everyone has a personal favorite song, film, or location that they look to when craving an experience laced with emotions, whatever those emotions may be. The true value of a beautiful experience, however, lies in its ability to change the way we think, feel, and interact with the people and world around us. Thus, the beautiful experience offers us much more than just in a physical sense. It expands our abilities to interact with the world and our own thoughts and feelings by ignoring any constructs or limits established by society. Instead, we are encouraged to live according to our own interpretations of the surrounding world.

 

This idea of an expansion and transcendence of self as allowed through the beautiful experience is more clearly explained by another who has taken interest in the subject. A post on the blog, Psychology of Beauty, provides further elaboration in its discussion of the value of “beautiful thinking.” Most of us view the world around us form inside a box, the author argues, with the surrounding walls representing our previous reactions we have had to any given event (some think of this box in terms of word availability, in which you are experiencing something, but your lack of words to describe the thing negates your perception of the thing’s existence). Once you are able to recognize the box as “self-limiting,” and thus acknowledge your power to step outside the box, you release yourself from limitation. More specifically, you no longer face the barrier that once limited you to understand your experiences in terms that you were already aware of.  You can now see the world around you in a different way—without any limits or constraints—and recognize the characteristic beauty of any experience.

 

Though a bit abstract, this metaphor speaks volumes to the value of beautiful experiences in our lives. Once we actively take steps to seek out beautiful experiences and identify them, we take more and more steps to push past any realistic limits and prepare ourselves to think more broadly and feel more intensely.

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Looking back on the last few paragraphs, I wonder to what extent I am able to define a beautiful experience. Through considerations of the value of pursuing beautiful experiences, awareness of social media’s inability to share true beautiful experiences, and common themes of my own beautiful experiences, I consider whether the ability to define a beautiful experience is to acquire the means to pursue it. What I have learned as a result is, while I cannot deny the statements that people have beautiful experiences and those beautiful experiences have consequences (i.e. an inability to truly appreciate those of others), there is no way to claim defined and specific properties of beautiful experiences; their attributes are completely subjective.

 

Though this realization acknowledges the fact that I will never have the ability to make complete, intelligible claims about what constitutes a beautiful experience, it doesn’t entirely negate the importance of pursuing them. By realizing the common themes of beautiful experiences in the context of my own, personal life, I am able to seek out similar experiences and better recognize the existence of beauty in my life. Further, by acknowledging that properties of beautiful experiences are subjective, I can strive to better understand and appreciate the experiences of others, like those shared on social media, by viewing them through the perspective of others rather than within the context of my own experiences.

 

The beautiful experience truly serves as an opportunity to enhance one’s life. With the ability to introduce new ways of thinking, connecting with emotions, and truly appreciating the surrounding world, living a life that is open to completely immersing oneself in beauty and appreciation is an appealing yet courageous way to live. The moments I’ve had in my life that I would term “beautiful experiences,” were memorable in all the ways stated above, with the addition to being crucial to the shaping of who I am today. The ways in which I interact with my thoughts, emotions, and the world form the attributes that I view as most unique to my own personality, and I believe the same to be true of those around me. Perhaps the value and appeal of the beautiful experience rings truest in its ability to form a population of people that engages with the world in different and unique ways, yet all comes together in a shared passion for the engagement itself.

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