Aesthetic Identity #4: Supercharging Your Rituals with Aesthetics
The key to creating sustainable rituals which you can look forward to
You’ve seen them all before. 12 morning rituals of successful entrepreneurs. 5 rituals to change your life. 22 things to do after you jump out of your bed so you become Superman.
They’re boring, ineffective, impossible to stick to. These articles miss a key point, and that is that rituals which work are those that are congruous to one’s mental state. Trying to adopt the rituals of someone else without considering that is often a fool’s errand. You must want to engage in your morning ritual. Otherwise, you’ll just be pressing snooze on the alarm clock so you can sleep in for another hour.
The aesthetics of rituals are a big reason why we engage in them.
There are an increasing number of Catholic Millennials that are flocking towards attending Latin Mass. It’s seen as more authentic, retaining the bells and whistles of high mass despite the modern Church’s drive towards stale modernity. They are drawn to the aesthetic which matches their conception of God: Ancient and Mysterious.
Equally, megachurches flourish because they appeal to those that want to see Jesus as the cool friend. Someone that will unconditionally party and dance with them. They really commit to the aesthetic. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s a church service or a rock concert.
But while the numbers for both ends of the spectrum are going up, global numbers for churchgoers have been steadily decreasing. The aesthetics of your ritual are important. People get disillusioned fast when they are neither here nor there.
It follows then that if we want a ritual that we can stick to, it has to be compelling to our own sensibilities.
One of my favourite examples of a morning ritual with contrasting but equally powerful aesthetics comes from the opening scene of Hobbes and Shaw:
They’re essentially doing the same thing: Waking up, making breakfast, driving out. But it couldn’t be more different. Neither is better than the other. It would be completely incongruous if Hobbes did what Shaw did and vice versa. Each of their rituals was right for them and it fully embodied the aesthetics of the character.
The essence of a powerful ritual incorporates aesthetics in multiple senses.
One of my favourite post-lunch rituals involves brewing a pot of coffee and then rolling a cigarette as I wait for the pot to cool down.
It’s lovely because it engages all the senses and grounds me in the moment. The sound of the grinder running as I prepare my brewing the equipment. The smell of coffee as I slowly brew it over the course of 5 minutes while music plays in the background. The tactile component of rolling the cigarette and the act of brewing my coffee. Over time I’ve also upgraded my brewing equipment to more visually appealing. Your rituals should be something that you are constantly updating, to reflect what appeals to your aesthetics inside.
Don’t smoke or ingest caffeine? That’s fine. Just because I do it doesn’t mean you should start! Even when riffing on the idea of a post-lunch or mid-afternoon ritual gives so many possible variations. I’ve been seeing lots of people on Twitter post about ceremonial cacao. Herbal or flower teas are fantastic when done right, and experimenting with your own blends can be a great way to discover your own taste.
You can even grow your own if weather permits it. I remember a visit to Coombeshead Farm in Cornwall where after dinner, the chef’s wife went out in the garden to gather herbs and flowers to brew a digestive tea. It’s absolutely wonderful and if you’re in the UK looking for a short weekend getaway, I highly recommend paying a visit.
If you journal first thing in the morning, or want to start, perhaps you might want to consider choosing a notebook and writing implement that has aesthetic appeal to you. I find that the choice of pen and notebook which I use drastically change my experience of notetaking. I love the feeling of a leather-bound notebook underneath my fingers as I open it up. The choice of pen and paper makes a difference, too. A heavy fountain pen resting between my thumb and index fingers make my writing feel effortless and smooth, and good quality paper is appealing both to the eyes and the touch.
Iterate quickly and inexpensively to figure out what really speaks to you before splurging.
A failure mode that I see many people fall into is they get really excited about buying new, shiny, implements for the rituals that they want to implement in their lives. The next thing you know, they’ve spent $300 on a pen, $250 on a hand-made porcelain cup, $150 on Vibram shoes. Then they go ahead and lose the motivation to follow through anyway.
The problem is that often when we decide to incorporate rituals in our lives, it’s part of some larger desire to move towards someone we want to be rather than who we really are. What you buy in support of that will be equally dissonant to your inner-self. This problem compounds once you subconsciously this. All the expensive instruments you bought will simply be a painful reminder about your own perceived shortcomings, and it leads to a vicious cycle of avoiding the activity because you don’t want to be reminded of it. Unless you’re already extremely tuned into your likes and dislikes, buyer’s remorse can hit fast and hard.
A better frame would be to embrace it as an evolving process. Start with a minimum viable product, so to speak. Aliexpress sells almost anything you want at an absurdly cheap price. Get a few cheap China-made fountain pens or notebooks in various styles. Buy coffee cups with different designs and use them for a few weeks before you decide which appeals to you the most.
When you figure out what really resonates with you, you can start splurging on items with a similar aesthetic. Or you know, stick with the stuff you bought from China which is what I do pretty often. I’m still using a $15 coffee scale that’s basically a knock-off Acaia Pearl (which costs $150).
That being said, some things are worth spending money on. A high quality fountain pen will almost always be much nicer to write with than a $10 Jinhao from China (although Chinese pens do have an absurdly good price-quality ratio). A gooseneck kettle makes brewing filter coffee a much more pleasant experience all-around, so it’s probably worth buying one if you do pour-overs semi-regularly, but do you *really* need one that’s temperature controlled?
We often get swept up in our responsibilities, buffeted by the winds of modern-day living. Rituals are a fantastic way to ground yourself. and provides both a reason and excuse to live in the moment even for a little while. So why not make it something that you’re constantly looking forward to?
Thanks for reading all the way to the end! What rituals do you currently engage in on a day to day basis, and are they aesthetically pleasing to you? Let me know by hitting reply, or dropping me a DM @shrinetothevine.