Aesthetic Life
On Joan Didion's distaste for aesthetic lives
My parents moved to Florida after I graduated college meaning that going back home doesn't hold the same meaning as the rest of my friends since I know about no one there. However, when I do go back, I live a different lifestyle than the one I can afford for myself in Boston. We go out to eat often, where I order a drink, an appetizer, and possibly dessert. I go grocery shopping without a “budget”. Mostly since I know no one, I try to be what I envisioned I would be if I lived in Florida and emulate the “Florida girl” I know, which many of my high school friends went on to be—a “clean girl” influencer. I go to Pilates, I buy healthy bowls, I go to the beach, I go on a hot girl walk with my parents dog. When the time comes and I'm about to leave, I do my last Pilates class, I go to the beach one last time, I buy an expensive aesthetically pleasing bowl. As my parents drive me to the Tampa airport, I begin to wonder and yearn for the type of life I would live here, how much money I would save, how many commodities I could afford, and the tranquil lifestyle that Florida could offer me.
It wasn't long ago I lost myself in some Substacks and decided to look up if Joan Didion had ever given a commencement speech. And I found it on “Joan Didion's 'lost' commencement address, revealed.” The moment I started reading it, I couldn’t stop re-reading it, annotating it, trying to get every piece of wisdom from it—I could write at least a million essays on every bit of knowledge addressed here. There was one piece I couldn't stop thinking about, as if she were repeating it over and over again in my mind. She details an entry she found in a magazine where a young woman is praising the lifestyle brought by sneakers. Here's an excerpt:
“‘I’d rather hike in the mountains than in the city’s festering noise. I’d rather give my kids some clay than guns and warfare toys. I’d rather work by planting trees than on an Air Force crew. I’d rather wear a sneaker than a shoe.’”
Of course when I first read it, I was inclined to say what a beautiful, fulfilling life, a good way of living. Joan, however, tells how much this angered her, not at the woman but at the “whole sloppy, simple-minded decade from which she had inherited this mess of pottage.”
She goes on to argue,
“I wanted to wake her up. I wanted to save her soul. I wanted to show her pictures from Auschwitz. I wanted to keep her from walking off the precipice. I wanted to sit her down and read the rest of the paper out loud to her.”
A lot of people compare how the American political spectrum is not really right or left–it's mostly centrist and alt-right. I envision a similar spectrum for “ways of being” with the ultimate left side of the spectrum a life of danger, constantly putting your life on the line, maybe living day by day and the ultimate right side a predictable, highly consumerist, “safe” life. Similarly, the US centers a little bit on the right–a predictable life of living in the suburbs, transporting yourself simply through cars, getting your lunch delivered in a private taxi, spending your weekends binging Netflix.
Like a political spectrum, it is not good to go all the way to the left (say communism, which is by the way, bad) and of course all the way to the right. I am also not saying that all of America lives all the way to the right and of course not the rest of the world lives all the way to the left.
Consumerism in America is after all, our culture. I have asked multiple if they would ever move back to their respective countries: my mom despite all reasons first said, “I would miss Target too much” my roommate from Mexico saying, “I'm too dependent on Amazon” and I, unfortunately, would really, really, really miss Trader Joe’s. America is the best consumer of the planet, with China coming in second and only spending about a third of what the US spends despite having 5x times as many people.
Consumerism is after all so deeply embedded in our culture that “left’ or “right” people don't recognize it. I am astonished to see so many of us see influencers as actual model figures. You can argue of course that we don't, yet, become extremely engrossed not only in their lives but try everything—surgeries, workout classes, clothes—to look just like them. I am struck by how many people I know, like me, see the influencers perfectly fit the clean girl or Pilates girl aesthetic, and suddenly become our North Stars–knowing we only will make it until we become them. I see how even in “Substack girlies” even use Didion’s name to brand themselves and their Substacks as the literary girl, making half mediocre Substack posts about lists of things that will do that will change your life! (insert the influencer accent)
There hasn’t been quite a time in my life where injustices are happening in just about every corner of the world. This is not an essay to describe the utter sadness I get from it, it is best saved for proper containment. But I do think I am baffled by our utter obsession with influencers. “Say something about it.” How do you expect someone that rates shoes to have an opinion on this? But mostly I think we need to rewrite this logic and question why we expect someone who rates shoes as the person who should have a say on this? Why are we expecting influencers to be the role models on political views?
Joan goes on to say,
In the same paper that day there was a story about a man who had murdered his three-year-old daughter by banging her head against the wall. In the papers that day there were definite indications that someone highly placed in the United States government had at one time put out a contract on Fidel Castro. In the papers that day every story seemed to suggest psychic and social connections and convulsions of the most dark and wrenching kind.
Now I don’t know how you deal with these convulsions, how you make those connections if you’re sitting around in sneakers congratulating yourself for planting a tree. Planting a tree can be a useful and pleasant thing to do. Planting a tree is not a way of life. Planting a tree as a philosophical mode is just not good enough
You can easily to “replace planting a tree” with “clean girl” or “trad wife”. It is not to say that to do Pilates is not good, or say being a mom is not good either, but when that (and by that I mean that “aesthetic” or model for having a say on something) becomes your North Star, or your philosophical mode life really is just not good enough.
Being an influencer is not a way of life. Traveling the world through an expensive but grossly surface-level trip is not a way of life. Going about your day, going to a workout, getting a smoothie, cleaning your house, is not a way of life and by any means not a philosophical way of living.
I’m not trying to make the argument that you should pack your stuff up and leave because yes America enjoys some goods in life we couldn't dream of in other places (safety, educational pursuits–tell me about it I'm an immigrant), and also yes you could live this right lifestyle in many other places.
Joan goes on to talk about the sixties
“I sometimes think that the most malignant aspect of the period was the extent to which everyone dealt exclusively in symbols….Certain artifacts were understood to denote something other than themselves….Marijuana was a symbol. Long hair was of course a symbol.”
Perhaps read the entire essay as I couldn't even try to borrow her idea as mine, or articulate the way that she did, but I do want to live off the commencement advice she left off.
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.”