Beauty and the Circle of Influence

An upshot of COVID has been going on daily walks when the weather is sweetest with Emily. It’s made for a nice break for us both and has come with two fun mini-games.

The first is maintaining distance from other people who are also out on walks at the prettiest time of day. This comes with the fun variation of, both-sides-of-the-street-are-taken-and-they’re-coming-straight-towards-us-how-long-can-we-walk-in-the-middle-of-the-street?

The second mini-game is more opt-in. We simply walk around the neighborhood and give the houses names. “What’s the boardgame with the black and white pieces? Othello. This house’s name is Othello.” This one is Over The Hills And Far Away and that one over there is Tuscany. Here we have The Beehive and its neighbor, The Burnt Marshmallow.

Maybe it’s the perceived lack of variety in things day-to-day and I’ve been noticing more details outside when I go walk around. For instance, the aesthetic choices of each house are more apparent. They’ve become public art displays whether intended as such or not.

That front door is beautiful. Woah, that one is ugly. They’re trying really hard and it’s not working for me. I hope they like it.

What is this flower? Look at the bursts of color on those two petals and not the others.

I love the stonework on this one.

That’s a really cool arrangement of succulents. Check out the geometry of that one.

Each one doesn’t need to exist or have the attention they receive to be what they are. Whether the street facing side of a house is a retirement pet project, the benefit of lots of excess capital, a personal passion project or something else entirely I am experiencing them all now with a higher degree of appreciation and enjoyment. Even the ones that are not traditionally beautiful, there’s beauty in their existence and the way nature has overgrown or finds a way to sneak in through the cracks of cobblestones.

(There’s a metaphor in here about appreciating the beauty in all people. I wish I had planned that better before I put off writing this.Y’all keep doing your things you beautiful creatures.)

The appreciation and desire for beauty on the walks has followed me inside my home. A tricky thing about beauty is that establishing a relationship with it can make things that are in disharmony with that beauty start to glow in a way that calls attention to them. That can work in one’s favor if they are doing it on purpose and I assure you that the highly functional wireframe shoe rack in my room is not a deliberate artistic contrast.

Literally last night I had a dream that China and New York were under attack by aliens. Enormous cables stretched into the sky that anchored mysterious fortresses to those locations. They were shrouded in intense colors, thunder and lightning. The one in NYC was like a plow pushing its way through the city row by row. I felt as though all I could do was wait for it to reach my home (which was in Brooklyn for some reason) while hoping that humankind could mount a successful counterattack before then.

There’s a concept that I’ve used a lot since I read about it in The 7 Habits called the Circle of Influence. It’s simple enough. We all have two circles. There’s a large circle referred to as the Circle of Concern. In it goes all the things in our lives that concern us. Things we’re unaware of are not included. Inside of this circle is another circle called the Circle of Influence. These are the things that we experience concern over that we can also actively impact.

You can be concerned about playoff games but, unless you’re on the team, you can’t influence it. You can be concerned over how to stay fit during the COVID lockdown and you have influence over how you go about that.

Beauty is something we have influence on.

We can add or modify the beauty in the things around us. We can drape a scarf on something unappealing to make it a bit more enjoyable to look upon. We can find better speakers or headphones to enjoy our music a bit more. We can make sure we’ve tuned our instruments before we start playing. We can take a few more minutes cooking something to help the flavors really pop.

We can also learn to see more beauty in what is already around us. Make no mistake, this is a skill we can cultivate. We may think we can already do this and I’d ask you to try again in places you’ve probably already written off. The subtle pattern present in the wood grain on your floor, the up close color gradations on the petals of a flower, the caw of a crow, the level design of your favorite game, the iris of your partner, the surreal quiet of the world outside your window, these all have infinite depth.

While the world may feel more closed off it’s important to pay attention to where we give our attention. Undoubtedly, there’s a balance to be found between being responsibly informed and swimming in a sea of cortisol. Cultivating beauty may help us find this balance.

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Bonus for the blog: an image showing the Circle of Influence with COVID that my housemate found.