This Beauty
A Philosophy of Being Alive
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An acclaimed philosopher and new father argues that engaging with beauty can make life worth living
You didn’t choose to live this life, in this body, in these conditions—this delicate and difficult life. Yet when you consider that your existence is fleeting, an inspired sense of urgency can spring forth. Say you often hike with a friend. One day, they propose that you skydive instead. You’re wavering, and they insist: Come on. You only live once! And soon you’re flying through the air. Why embrace a life you did not choose?
In This Beauty, philosopher Nick Riggle explores the beauty of being alive by investigating the things we say to inspire ourselves and each other: seize the day, treat yourself, you only live once. These clichés are at best vague, at worst stupid. They imply that you should do something wild with your life because your life is precious, a little like saying you should go swimming with your grandfather’s watch because it is irreplaceable.
Drawing on insights from aesthetics and his experiences as a professional skater and new father, he develops the thought that beauty—the beauty of this day, this body, this moment, these people—can make life worth embracing, worth engaging with and amplifying as beautiful. Insightful and deeply humane, This Beauty is a searching inquiry into the mystery of life’s beauty and a call to create and share it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Why should I care about or value... this life that was simply given to me?" asks Riggle (On Being Awesome), a University of San Diego philosopher and former professional skater, in this subtle meditation. Drawing on an eclectic variety of sources that include Plato, Leonard Cohen, and Ocean Vuong, the author contends that "attending to and replicating" beauty can give meaning to life. He lays out a nuanced definition of beauty as a force that prompts engagement and self-expression through imitation and sharing. Such actions create what Riggle calls "aesthetic community," in which one enters into an artistic conversation by generating art that can then be imitated and shared again: "When you share, express, and imitate, you engage in special forms of community and love." For an academic philosopher, Riggle's writing can be gorgeously concrete ("The glowing ocotillo that foregrounds a peach tree in full bloom, heavy with light pink petals, carmine buds, and, if I squint, yellow-tipped pistils"), but the ideas are heady and readers may be disappointed that they aren't as accessible as the Drake references would suggest. The result is a dense but rewarding take on beauty's central role in life.
