Everyday Beauty V: Tidiness is a result of aesthetics

An empty desk is functional but is it beautiful? A cup holding pens is functional, but a pen cup made from cut glass in a metal frame is beautiful beyond its function. So it is with all things pertaining to beauty including the art of tidying. Marie Kondo, in her book, THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP, writes of taking an object into one’s hands and asking, “Does this object bring me joy?”  That action is about aesthetics, not about function.  An object may be beautiful due to its function but what causes you joy is not merely function–it is aesthetics. … Continue reading

Visualizing A Tidy Home V–The Living Room

I’m still blogging on my responses to the book THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP by Marie Kondo. Today I wanted to think on my Living Room. My living room is a long room, a bit on the narrow side, with lots of but in shelves and cabinets. Storage is no problem there, but getting to the storage is! Too much stuff left over from the last move, sitting there, in boxes, and I cannot find what I need, and I suspect a lot of that needs to GO. But today I am to be visualizing. So here I go. … Continue reading

Everyday Beauty IV: Aesthetics

Ayn Rand argued that mechanical function was in itself beautiful and that decoration did not make it more beautiful but less. In THE FOUNTAINHEAD, she uses architecture, which at the time often hid the functional aspects of a building behind a facade of classical motifs, to argue for function being beautiful in itself and that decoration was fake.  I do not disagree at all that functional things have their own inherent beauty, and that adding a fake exterior to hide the functional beauty does not add but may even detract from the true beauty of the object, but why must … Continue reading

Visualizing A Tidy Home IV–The Library

Today I am moving my visualization to the center of our house, a roughly octagonal library space. I am continuing with the book THE LIFE-CHANING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP by Marie Kondo.  The library is my favorite part of this house, or would be if I could see it properly and walk through it. Due to lack of display cases for my beautiful collection of antique typewriters, they are in huge boxes with huge amounts of packing material, being safe, but also filling the entire middle of the Library with their presence. I visualize the Library so very very differently. … Continue reading

Everyday Beauty III: Dreams of Beauty

I spent a fascinating hour discussing the function and definition of beauty with someone who is a philosophical follower of Ayn Rand. Now, I am an admirer of but no follower of Ayn Rand on the subject of Beauty, being that I am of the philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand, Saint Josemaria Escriva and Saint John Paul II.  I see beauty as the reflection of the creator, thus as a higher good. Ayn Rand’s is a view that true beauty has no aesthetic beyond the mechanical function; I argue that beauty is more than but includes that function. My parents have a … Continue reading