By Sarah-Linda Forrer.
Did you know that beauty is not, always, only superficial?
Why are we always pursuing beauty? Buying pretty objects, liking images we find attractive, embellishing our homes and outfits?
Well, it’s for a good reason.
Beauty makes us happier and is even quite essential for optimal mental health, if you believe Abraham Maslow.
I was wondering if my obsession with beauty (from objects to environments to clothes) is good for anything. I can go on long (sometimes exhausting) searches to find that one restaurant, airbnb or village that’s just a little more beautiful than the others.
I honestly feel a lot happier in an environment that I find beautiful, wether it’s the road I’m driving, the restaurant I’m at or the apartment I’m living in. I even feel sad and annoyed if I’m in a place that I don’t find appealing in any kind of way (what a waste of time that I could instead have spent in a place that brings me some kind of inspiration).
And now I know that it’s not for nothing, it actually has real benefits to bathe in beauty.
In the late 19th century, many artists, writers, and painters identified themselves with what became known as the aesthetic movement. This began in the 1860s and was concentrated mostly in England and France. Aesthetes placed beauty above all things and argued that its worship and creation should be the center of life.
For the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, everything is moved by a restless ‘will’ (roughly what the modern physicist means by energy). This includes human beings, who are forever trapped between frustrated desire (for food, sex etc.) and depressed boredom once the desire has been satisfied. Only when transfixed by beauty, Schopenhauer argued, are we free of this painful cycle. In the presence of beauty a person feels neither desire nor boredom.
Ruskin believed that a reverence for beauty would also lead to a more humane and moral society. If you loathe ugliness, you will behave decently because cruelty is ugly. For Oscar Wilde, the love and creation of beauty was the purpose and meaning of life itself.
Beauty as a means to a peaceful life?
After philosophers, writers and artists, scientists also starting looking at beauty.
The branch of science studying the effect of the environment on your health and happiness is called environmental psychology, and emerged between the 1950’s and 1970’s. One of the first experiments was done by Abraham Maslow in 1950, where he examined the impact of the physical environment on the human psyche.
He conducted the experiment with 3 different rooms: an ugly one, an average one and - of course - a beautiful one.
The conclusion: environment does indeed influence state of mind. People tend to be happier with themselves, more positive in their outlook on the world, and more energised when they’re in a beautiful setting versus mediocre or downright unattractive surroundings.
There you go! If only all schools and offices were beautiful.. and what if prisons were beautiful too? And factories?
No wonder people ask professionals to create beauty in their homes and workspaces. It does add real life value, and if it increases the mood and betters the outlook on the world, it’s probably great for productivity and creativity as well. I mean, who wouldn’t want that?
“The more we learn about man’s natural tendencies, the easier it will be to tell him how to be good, how to be happy, how to be fruitful, how to respect himself, how to love, how to fulfil his highest potentialities … The thing to do seems to be to find out what one is really like inside; deep down, as a member of the human species and as a particular individual”
- Maslow, 1987 -
Abraham Maslow was one of the earliest psychologists to focus attention on happy individuals and their psychological trajectory, and is most well known for his “hierarchy of needs.”
In his quest to understand human motivation and the pursuit of happiness, he formulated a list of basic human needs that had to be fulfilled for maximum psychological health. Through his interviews and studies, he came to categorise a hierarchical list of needs that need to be fulfilled for increasing life satisfaction:
- Physiological Needs - such as breathing, food, drink, sleep, sex, excretion are the first needs for human survival
- Safety Needs - economic, social, vocational, psychological security come after the basic needs
- Belongingness & Love Needs - as social beings, family, friendships and intimate connections are very important to humans. Having wider social connections and relationships are an important part of being happy
- Esteem Needs - as individuals, we naturally wish to excel or be exceptional, to be noticed for our unique talents and capabilities. Once one has some measure of self-esteem and confidence, one gains the psychological freedom to be creative and to grow as well as to be more generous to others
- Cognitive Needs - Maslow believed that humans have the need to increase their intelligence and thereby chase knowledge. Cognitive needs is the expression of the natural human need to learn, explore, discover and create to get a better understanding of the world around them.This growth need for self-actualization and learning, when not fulfilled leads to confusion and identity crisis
- Aesthetic Needs - based on Maslow’s beliefs, it is stated in the hierarchy that humans need beautiful imagery or something new and aesthetically pleasing to continue up towards Self-Actualization. Humans need to refresh themselves in the presence and beauty of nature while carefully absorbing and observing their surroundings to extract the beauty that the world has to offer. This need is a higher level need to relate in a beautiful way with the environment and leads to the beautiful feeling of intimacy with nature and everything beautiful
- Self-Actualization Needs - after all those needs are filled, self-actualised people tend to experience a steadier, grounded sense of well-being and satisfaction with life. According to Maslow, self-actualizing people perceive reality accurately; they have a sense of awe, wonder, and gratitude about life. They are not self-centered but rather problem-centered and focus on how to improve and are not deficiency-centered. They are independent thinkers and are not overly influenced by the general culture.
- Self-transcendence Needs - Maslow later divided the top of the triangle to add self-transcendence which is also sometimes referred to as spiritual needs. Spiritual Needs are a little different from other needs, accessible from many level. This need when fulfilled, leads to feelings of integrity and take things to another level of being.
Who knew there were so many levels in finding true happiness and human-ness!
Although we can perfectly live and be quite happy without going through all those levels, it makes a lot of sense to me that this is all part of being human.
So anyway, next time you wonder if (more) beauty is really necessary in your life, now you know that this quest for beauty is just part of you being human and self-actualised (as long as that beauty you’re chasing is sustainable and doesn’t harm the planet and other people of course, because that would go against this whole logic ;) ).
