On Beauty, To Own or Not to Own?

Over the last two years, my mind has been plagued with a wide range of questions, questions to which I have tried to find answers, and have repeatedly realised that merely thinking about them is almost never the solution. I need to write them, I need to bring them out, for only then do they take even a vaguely coherent form and afford me some kind of a legitimate answer.

The question of beauty is just one small part of that huge puzzle, and hopefully it will nudge the other pieces into my conscious mind, so that the written word may, from there, precipitate them into this outside world where they could be understood.

Before moving forward, I would like to differentiate between active and passive forms of beauty, and bring to notice that we have different reactions to each of them. Passive forms of beauty do not respond to our interactions with them, at least not through an intention driven action. An example would be a rose. Active forms of beauty are those that do, fellow human beings for instance. Thus, the difference between active and passive forms of beauty is consciousness, and not whether it is living or non-living. I do not count the wilting of a flower when it is plucked as an “interaction” because it has no intentionality – it is inevitable.

In this piece, I want to talk about passive forms of beauty, and our instinctive reaction to own them.

We find beauty in all kinds of things – in the fog that drapes the hills during the monsoon, the sea shells we pick up from the sea of sand near those of water, the slow birth of fruits from their flowery parents, in the way a seasoned musician plays that particular note on his instrument, in the minds of the geniuses who have graced our land, in how our favourite athletes waltz through the green turf, in the people we love, and in many other things.

Humans have nearly a dozen different kinds of senses, including the five principle sense organs. These include proprioception (the sense of the relative positioning of different parts of the body), our perception of the passage of time, our perception of temperature, our sense of balance, among many others.

I believe that for each sense we have, there is a corresponding set of beautiful experiences linked with it and with the passage of time, we have created specific words for such experiences linked with those senses – “cosy” blanket, “melodious” song, “delicious” food, “breath-taking” sunset and a “thrilling” bungee-jump are just a few examples.

It is relevant here to observe that we will never call a landscape as visually delicious, a song as aurally cosy and food as gustatorially melodious – yet they all really imply a beautiful experience linked with that particular sense – that feeling on account of a cosy blanket in the middle of a cold winter is beautiful; hearing a song of our favourite artist, or maybe the gurgling sounds made by one’s child, is beautiful; the fragrance of a flower, or that of a perfume your colleague carries, is beautiful; the taste of a dish from a particular cuisine that you really like is beautiful, and so on.

What do I feel when I experience something of beauty? There are a number of associated feelings that do arise, often including, almost instinctively, that of the need to own that thing. But why would I want to own it? It could be because I want my experience of that beauty to last. I am wary of the ephemeral nature of the experience, and sub-consciously want to avoid the inevitable sadness I will feel when I no longer have that beautiful thing with me. This makes me want to stay in that warm cosy blanket for a few more minutes (temperature); have one more spoonful of that delicious pudding (taste); play that melodious song on loop for hours (sound); travel for miles to watch that beautiful sunset (sight) and so on.

It is easy to observe that this need of “ownership”, though, does not arise for all beautiful things. Why is that? I see a few possible reasons for this.

Firstly, not all beautiful things are rare. Take a flower in a plant that is growing in a meadow. Assuming all flowers are beautiful (I am yet to see a flower which I could deem ugly), if it is the only plant of its kind in that area, then its perceived importance will skyrocket and my need of ownership will come to the fore (let me uproot this and take this home and plant this in my garden so I can see it day and night?). If, however, the meadow happens to have many such plants, then this need of ownership is unlikely to arise, as I am assured of the presence of that flower for a considerable distance in all directions from that spot. Here, the constant access to that beautiful thing is consciously concluded based on the evidence provided by our senses.

Secondly, there are certain kinds of beautiful things you can never own. In such cases, the concept of ownership is absurd. You cannot own a sunset, the foggy hills, or the beauty of a full moon night. But what you can do is repeatedly go to that particular place at the right time and experience that beauty again and again. You do not have to ever part with these kinds of beauty, even given that you do not own them. In this case, the “instinct to own” takes on a different form and makes us visit those places or re-create those situations. It may be impossible to own a sunset, but maybe I could build a home near the sunset point?

Thirdly, there are certain kinds of beautiful things you will always own. Think about the good memories you have – time spent with your parents, friends, or your loved one; when you completed that project by foregoing sleep for 3 days; when you completed writing a poem and nobody was around to see the elation on your face and other such important moments of your life. You automatically own all of your memories because you will always have them. They cannot be shared with anyone else because they are ineffable. Here, constant access is unconsciously known, so the need to strive for it doesn’t even arise.

And lastly, there is one case that really brings out the best of human nature. These cases involve things of beauty that are rare, which can be owned, and that you are currently deprived of, and yet, you do not want to own them. This case arises on account of empathy, the ability to see beyond oneself, realising that that beautiful thing is more important for someone or something else – these could be living entities like people and animals, non-living entities like the environment or even intangible entities like our nation, our morals and certain ideas that we value.

In this last case, our love for that external entity, which could take a myriad number of forms, overshadows and overpowers any love we may feel for that beautiful thing. When we refrain from plucking that particularly rare flower in a forest because it is really important for the ecosystem of that region; when we share our delicious food with someone less fortunate who is forced to roam the street and beg; when a mother who doesn’t afford two blankets gives away her blanket to her child in the middle of a cold heartless winter night; when you give away the window seat of the train to your younger sibling even when you want to sit there, too, and this is your first train journey in over a year; when you change your favourite song that was playing on your stereo system and let your loved one play what she wants, and so on. All these cases, and similar ones, are examples when your instinctive response to own (or experience) a beautiful thing takes a backseat.

It is important here to understand that this sense of “ownership” goes much beyond the commercial interpretation of the word. Insofar as our response to beauty is concerned, the word really means “constant access”. You own the things to which you have constant access, that are available to you as per your wishes, as and when you need them.

Our first reaction to anything is instinctive, over which we have no control, for it is Darwin working at full throttle, down in the unconscious and sub-conscious levels of this building of awareness. After this response, comes our conscious response to it, over which we do have control, and where we are able to make choices. Over time, with perseverance and practice, we can also have some control over our unconscious reactions, but that is beyond the scope of this piece.

This conscious response gives us real power – it gives us the power to drive our actions and thoughts into directions into which the baseline Darwinian response may not have driven us.

It is evolutionarily profitable for a person to keep, for example, all “beautifully tasty” food for himself and his own community. So, when he goes to a foreign country, he really derives no benefit from sharing his food with a frail and emaciated beggar when no-one else is watching him do this. But, due to our self-awareness, we are able to reflect on our future course of action after Darwin has fed the “most profitable” path for us. The person may, thus, choose to share his food and give more weightage to his responsibility as a more fortunate member of his species, than to his ability to exploit that very fortune and make things more evolutionarily favourable for himself by not sharing his food and letting that beggar die and thus reducing the (microscopically feeble) competition that that beggar was, to him. Numerous other such cases could be presented.

So, in addition to using money to “buy” and thus have constant access to (ergo, owning) beautiful things like paintings and clothes and furniture and cars (and all kinds of materialistic things which seem beautiful to you), you also own a number of other beautiful things. Just like you own the “tasty” mangoes that grow on the tree in your garden, the beautiful flowers that blossom below that tree, the “melodious” birds that come for the nectar of those flowers, and so on, you also “own” the morally righteous actions that you do, for they also represent a kind of beauty – beauty of the soul and mind.

It could be argued, regarding the tree and flower example, that those kinds of beauty are fundamentally different from the other type (of moral actions) – in that you bought that land using money.

But money only bought you the land! It was something, again, fundamentally different from (merely) money – your love for the plant – that created the right conditions for the plant to grow; and your hard work, perseverance and dedication that helped it to prosper on that land for many years. Even that home near the sunset point, required efforts on your part – someone had to bring the construction materials and furniture and mattresses and other amenities to that spot!

Money may buy you beautiful things, but it cannot make that beauty last. Your own efforts, ethical choices and feelings of empathy and kindness, on the other hand, can assure you of constant access to a beautiful thing, for at least as long as you can enjoy its company.

Therefore, the right kind of response to beauty, or in any case the more peaceful kind both for one’s own mind in particular and for the rest of the cosmos in general, is the middle path – partly driven by instinctive reactions and partly by reflective ones. The very existence of a beautiful thing is its gift, and it is not always measurable in human terms. Do you think the thirty rupees you paid for (so as to “own”) that fully blossomed rose is its actual value? Or is its actual value better measured by the number of bees it attracted before withering away? Why do people keep parrots in cages at their homes – it is to have constant access to their visual beauty and the beauty of their voice. But is this constant access really giving happiness to the both of you? Wouldn’t it be better if you put in some effort to develop a friendship with that parrot so that he would genuinely want to stay with you? In that case, the parrot would have had his freedom and flown around the house and maybe even played with a few of the kids in the neighbourhood, and then returned to you.

By putting chains on beautiful things, by dictating its boundaries, we reduce that thing of beauty to a mere commodity, a slave.

Beauty is meant to soar, to live freely.

Beauty exists for its own sake.