💬 Weekly Question: Where will you find beauty this holiday season?
Weekly questions’ comment sections are left open for one week. This thread is now locked.
Longtime readers of this newsletter will know that I publish a photo essay series called “In Search of Beautiful Things (and Creative Inspiration”. My argument is that we find creative inspiration when we treat beauty as a kind of practice. It requires work - to seek it out, to recognize it, to foster it in ourselves and our communities. Sounds hooey-fooey, I’m sure, but we live in a world where aesthetic has been in steep decline for decades, a kind of anti-cultural madness has led to mass exhaustion, even depression, and an increasing social disconnection in the 21st century, and social media and now AI has confused the real even more than French philosophers originally worried about.
I bring this up because the holiday season can be a grim time for many, even before this strange slow-motion apocalypse kicked off a couple of decades ago. The promise of the holidays can all too often be overshadowed by the state of, well, everything these days. You can lose sight of things that matter. That’s why this week, I want to ask you the following question now so you can create a kind of mental covenant with yourself not to lose sight of it before your uncle starts talking about all the [euphemism for someone who doesn’t look like him] ruining your country:
Where will you find beauty this holiday season?
For me, I’ll be finding beauty in my family after the worst year of our lives (don’t ask, please; we’re okay, but it’s been brutal). After some serious soul-searching, I’ve made some decisions about work in the new year that should make my life considerably easier. The result is I will have more downtime than usual over the break. I hope to play games with my kids, cook with my wife, and take long walks to explore the community around the house we just bought. I’m going to pause as much as possible to focus on where I am rather than, as the last year has forced me to do, where I’m going.
Now, your turn, my friends. Tell me what you will do to seek out, identify, and foster beauty in your lives this holiday season?
Please note: There will be no Weekly Question next week, as I’ll be taking some time off for Christmas. I’ll still be here — I can’t quit you, beautiful people — but it’s one less thing on my plate to worry about. Thanks for your understanding and being here.
We do a Christmas Eve open house — a few years back, wife suggested it and I was all "I was just thinking that." It's not a big deal, but it brings together people who don't see each other enough and who we don't see enough. I find myself really looking forward to it.
(though, new dog… it could be a challenge)
To be real I don’t know? From 19 to 29 I was in the midst of getting my “film” education and not whatever SUNY(state) or CUNY(city) and then eventually NYU(private-yet way more flexible than the first two schools) was forcing me to take.
It was brutal. My moms a well meaning but never attended college Boomer, had to realize I was in the arena and this was my reality.
The holidays didn’t provide the reprieve or reset it as it seemed to do in high school. We all know why. Money.
As an adult money matters.
The day to day need for it was oxygen. The holidays threw a monkey wrench into all of that. Now whatever job I had came to a screeching halt.
It was the week after Christmas going through the entire winter session, that’s when I was alive. I had money
Of course it’s the dead of January, everyone was back to their moody non holiday grinch status.
Keep in mind I wasn’t apart of the gift giving at all during these years. I could get you a card. Deal with it. As time went on unfortunately the ten years it took to get my bachelors all but killed any holiday vibe. Whatever I was “supposed” to do come this time of year I could never partake. So I just came to appreciate the way things just slow down and people are on holiday or doing whatever.
Now with both parents gone and I don’t have kids (see ten years it took to get college degree) the holidays mean nothing to me. I let those who revel do their thing but for me it’s just a way to remind myself a new year is coming and review how I want to approach it.