I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.
—Anne Frank
Certainly, in making this statement, Anne Frank was not dismissing the reality of misery but rather insisting that we balance it with beauty. Of course, balance is tricky, and neither the young author nor any of us is likely to attain perfect balance in this regard. In turbulent times, however—and ours are guaranteed to become even more turbulent—the capacity and willingness to create beauty may prove not only restorative but even life saving.
Hidden in the attic of an Amsterdam office with her family, attempting to escape apprehension by the Nazis, she had access to little that one might consider beautiful. She found comfort, however, in her cat and in her writing. In any event, she tells us to seek and savor the beauty that still remains.
As one travels throughout certain regions of the United States, such as the Rust Belt and the South, visual indications of collapse are ubiquitous. Blight, broken windows, and a distinct absence of beauty insult the eye and the soul. It is not difficult to imagine rampant ugliness engulfing cities and suburbs as collapse exacerbates. Thus, our need to find and create beauty is imperative for those who wish to sustain themselves emotionally and spiritually.
Poetry, story, music, art, and dance are some of the tools available to us for creating beauty in the midst of brokenness. Each has the capacity to knit together within the soul and the senses those many opposites that seem irreconcilable in times of great unraveling: despair and joy, fear and tranquility, austerity and generosity, solitude and community, to name a few. The willingness to create beauty gives witness to our intention to persevere—our commitment to living life soulfully in the midst of changes that will ultimately become soul murdering for countless individuals.
Creating beauty not only is reparative for us but constitutes a generous act of healing for the community. Sharing our appreciation of beauty and resolving to cocreate more, we navigate misery with the eye, ear, and heart that refuses to concede that misery is all we have left. Thus, we rededicate ourselves to forces more meaningful and timeless than mere physical survival.