By Jay Topp
Hey friend,
Since my mid-teens I've had a strong pull toward aesthetics. And as I've grown up — travelled, read, lived in great cities, been exposed to great art — my aesthetic sensibilities have grown with me. Or so I like to think.
What I mean is: my need for beauty keeps growing.
My taste for what is beautiful keeps getting more refined.
I need to live in more beautiful spaces, where the smaller details matter more and more.
In the venues I frequent. In the software I use. In the pens I write with.
Why is this?
I believe art has a special function — at the individual level and the civilisational level.
Art is the great mechanism for the reconciliation of life itself.
Not through words, or theory, or intellectualism.
Art makes life valuable beyond description or explanation.
One work of art. One song. One poem. One short film.
Can take us from utter brokenness and contempt for life... into amazement, wonder, and tears of gratitude for whatever this thing called life is.
We usually find this first in the art of others. That's where most of us discover it.
But it's more potent — I believe anyway — when it's our own art.
Nobody needs to see it (though the expression is fulfilling).
Nobody needs to understand it (though to be understood is a great and rare gift).
Nobody needs to appreciate it (though to be loved for what you truly are is what every human craves).
It's the creation of our own art that reconciles our own existence — no matter our belief system, or our inability to find one that sticks.
Art justifies and reconciles life.
Our own art justifies and reconciles our own lives, however we may feel about the nature of our existence.
Which brings me to books.
Books have long been civilisation's great gift — the great justification of the pain, love, and loss that went into the writing of each page.
Not the process of writing itself... but the life lived that put the blood on each page.
I've seen this in the writing of my own books.
I've seen it in every expert business I've built, consulted, or helped.
Because that's what an expert business is: a piece of art.
It justifies the life of the coach.
The years that were lived.
The pressure that created the diamonds of their work.
A book. An expert business.
These are vehicles to affirm your life. Your existence.
To express and create your own art — the thing only you can make.
And to turn that into a profitable business, one that funds your life, your greater exploration and expression... even builds wealth that could continue to fund your vision after you're gone.
That has to be one of the most life-affirming things you could do.