I’ve thought about this idea for at least a year now. These are not original thoughts. Many people have thought them before. Thus, it seemed, not great, to waste time corralling this idea into a narrative, because, it is really just a series of questions.

Experiencing an aesthetic is less exciting than the experience of imagining an aesthetic. Experience is subtle. Experience is uncontrolled. The sounds which create an aesthetic are irregular and we do not choose when they occur. Rain is subject to the rhythms of the wind – the shifting solar pressures of a planet which we do not hold in our hand.

A friend said simply: “Life is not glamourous. My life as a consultant is not glamorous. Life is not an academic TikTok. It is not a stock office photo.” Marketing packages aesthetic, presents an image, tells others. Marketing simplifies complexity to an authentic aesthetic. Marketable authenticity is an aesthetic which forgets that authenticity is beyond complex. It is messy.

            The grad school English student aesthetic?

            The grad school engineering student aesthetic?

The flying aesthetic?

            The water engineer aesthetic?

            The dank middle Midwest winter aesthetic?

            The southern Great Plains aesthetic?

            The aesthetic of the Northland?

            I want to feel the aesthetic of the Northland.

            The Ivy League theology professor or the Toni Morrison is a goddess aesthetic?

How can we differentiate pursuing excellence from pursuing an aesthetic?

How many aesthetics are acceptable to be combined and packaged into a singular person’s brand?

How can you authentically brand yourself to get a job without constantly falling into the trap of saying, what aesthetic do I fit into?

Are aesthetics a new religion?

Are aesthetics an extension of the postmodern sensate culture of the self?

When one arrives at phrases about cultures of the self and self-centeredness, it is time to look outward.

What kind of person should I be, as a Christian, that part of myself which is beyond myself?

Even then, the summarized sentence, “instead of pursuing an aesthetic, our pursuit should be to come to know God,” has been aestheticized. When I say that phrase, I imagine old men studying books printed with tall 1990s Times New Roman font and the pastor’s wife in the church cinder-block basement, sucking all the fun out of life. In turning from that aesthetic, I imagine awful visits to new churches, the question “how can we serve you,” coffee, Bible journaling.

I guess what I’m trying to say using the aesthetic of a blog post is that my question used to be how does one get out of all the aesthetics and then I realized today when you are out of pursuing an aesthetic and instead you are totally in a moment there is no aesthetic, there is only what is, and you don’t feel what you feel when you look at an acclomeration of aesthetics, instead, you just feel what you are, and how, who, has described that before.