A reflection on my year of the Aesthetic
beauty for beauty's sake, baby
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Spoiler alert: it’s my favorite word of the year, yet.
When I was considering how I wanted to be guided throughout this year, the phrase that kept coming to me was “beauty for beauty’s sake.”
Some of my past words of the year included courage, create, curiosity, trust, warmth, unearth, and adventure. Each year, I unearthed new lessons and insights, always grateful for each new word’s guidance.
But this year… Aesthetic is my unapologetic favorite.
Reminder: the aesthetic is the meal
This is what I’ve learned in recent years: the aesthetic of life isn’t a cherry on top. It’s not the bonus French fry or the sprinkle of fairy dust on life. The aesthetic is everything.
A couple of months ago, I shared more deeply what the aesthetic means to me and why I chose it as my Word of the Year. I wanted to create a wardrobe, style, home, and collection of written words with the sole purpose of lighting me up with joy and satisfaction in their form, not function.
(I do also love the added layer of creativity for creating something — a room, Substack logo, or outfit — that aligns with both form and function. But form is the priority.)
“I go to yoga, write my morning pages (sometimes), take my daily vitamins, eat lots of vegetables, and get in my yearly wellness check-ups at the clinic. But if I’m being honest, even those practices are defined by my aesthetic yearnings. I want a morning writing space that makes me feel like Jane Austen. I want vibrant, colorful vegetables I purchased at the farmer’s market, chopping them up while listening to the new Noah Kahan album. I want an OBGYN office with pastel-colored chairs and art prints hung on the walls.
I want the vibe.”
Aesthetic throughout the year
At the end of last year, I joined Sustenance for more community and instruction for deepening my writer’s life. As a new baby poet who thirsted to learn everything I could about the craft, making this investment in myself felt important. It has paid off tenfold in how I view myself as a writer and move through life as a practicing noticer. There are true geniuses that walk among us.
This led me to rediscover the lost art of earnestness. How my heart pounds while reading captivating words, or the way my gaze can’t seem to be torn away from a sunset, or how I feel too damn cool sporting my new sweatshirt recently curated in my closet… these are the tender, sweet aches of earnestness. (In fact… earnestness and enchantment are my two top contenders for my 2025 Word of the Year.)
For years, while trying to live with less, be a minimalist, or simply live in only 200 square feet of converted school bus, I developed deep shame whenever I would buy basically anything. Yes, this can be a great thing: it’s anti-consumerism, doing my part (whatever that means) to help the planet, and it keeps me from hoarding things I don’t need. But it also keeps me from having the simple treasures I want, or a style I feel proud of. (Or, actually, need.) I had learned to live without things like jeans, hair ties (ones that weren’t so stretched out they actually did anything), and a muffin tin. While I’m still working on whatever baggage I still have about not owning a muffin tin, this year, I allowed myself to buy, and create.
The aesthetic taught me that I am allowed to own beautiful things. My favorite way I’ve learned to curate a style that makes me feel awesome is renting clothes. Nuuly is my fave. And buying second-hand (clothes, furniture, and decor) is not only more aligned with my values — it’s aesthetic.
Where aesthetic meets habit
On another normal day of walking into my bedroom and recognizing how truly bummed out I was by the state of my bedroom and its lack of design… the aesthetic cheekily reminded me that I have the power to change that. After joyfully perusing Pinterest for inspiration and getting my handy partner on board with the plan, together we spent a weekend curating, painting, and recreating the environment in which we spend over a third of our lives.
Thoughtfully arranging an environment where my bed now sits next to my windows, rather than having them across the room, so I open them as soon as I wake to watch the sunrise… that’s aesthetic.
Having a candle on my writer’s desk so I can write by candlelight and actually look forward to my morning pages, rather than trying to force myself into my office where my j-o-b occurs (and which I instantly connect to burnout), is aesthetic.
Reading a book first thing in the morning to create my creativity and wonder at the genius of other writers before I even get out from under the covers in the morning is a beautiful intersection of habit and aesthetic that’s quite literally changed my life. I now read every single day.
To wrap up, living for the aesthetic feels like authenticity. It feels like giddiness. It makes me feel alive and more aware of the tiny, special moments around me. What started as a way to bring poetry more into the forefront of my mind, became a practice of living my life in alignment with what I find beautiful and lovely.
Cheers to growing even further into this aesthetic life in the new year!
If you’re new here…
Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. It’s a travel blog / poetry newsletter / attempt to understand my inner world a bit better each day.
Subscribers can expect weekly-ish newsletters from me (and my forever undying gratitude!)
This reminds me of the William Morris quote I've tried to live by, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." The beautiful part is so important! This got me thinking about how I could rearrange to support more dreamy-feeling habits in my home.
Thanks for this post. 🖤 It really spoke to me as I only recently discovered my 'Big Five for Life' (google John Strelecky if you want to learn more) and one of my 'Big Five for Life' is not compromise on the Aestetics. As I'm a hobby-potter, this will heavily show in my pottery pieces. I'm going to create pottery pieces that I like and not what I think others might like. And I'm currently also looking into my clothes. There again, no compromise... and yes, that currently means buying new clothes as I was also moving towards minimalism there but that meant compromising my aesthetic understanding of my style. Not anymore.