Prioritising Polymathism And Aesthetics As You Age
Becoming a renaissance man | Mini article
As I am now 41 years old and have entered the middle phase of my life I have noticed a distinct shift in priorities of lifestyle over the last few years.
My desire to go out partying, drinking alcohol and even going out to see bands play has been vastly reduced. All activities which I used to enjoy immensely in my twenties and thirties.
Replacing it has been a desire to experience different modes of life and study. As the concept of the finite nature of life has become more present in my consciousness.
We must make the most of every moment. As men, how we are perceived is generally tied to our ability to be useful to society. To create, build and generate resources for the society we are part of.
We can do this in a specialised way or a generalised way but it essentially boils down to acquiring skill, knowledge and possessing the necessary agency to manifest and realise valuable ideas from conception to fruition.
After realising this change in my spirit gradually, a few years ago I made a decision to pursue radical self-developmental goals and assume radical personal responsibility for my life.
I had had enough of my lack of skill, my lack of knowledge and of the totalitarian aspects of the culture that surrounded me at the time.
It was a good decision.
This phase has been an intense and fruitful process of learning, building, failure and skill and knowledge acquisition.
It has been a transformational period and has now led me to pursuing and prioritising polymathism and a focus on aesthetics in my life.
To become a competent renaissance man and attempt to surround myself with beauty, functionality and positivity in all aspects of life including relationships.
You can be an artist, an entrepreneur, a designer, a sartorial aesthete, a fighter, a writer, an investor, a philosopher and a mathematician. You can become competent in each discipline even though your surrounding culture will tell you you can’t.
Leonardo Da Vinci, born of the Italian renaissance, is renowned for his work as a painter and sculptor, but was also highly skilled in other disciplines such as anatomy, mathematics, music, engineering, architecture and invention.
He was interested in developing the full range of human potential, a concept that does not gel well with the goals of individuals who hold institutional power in this world.
You can pursue these disciplines to various degrees and embrace the inevitably of failure in the process.
Failing is the way to learn. After you fail at something, another potentially more successful path reveals itself.
I have also come to value, more and more, living an aesthetically rich life.
Take clothing for example, in which I have always had an interest in.
The clothing we wear has a large impact on how we feel and are perceived in society.
We can choose to develop a personal style and be highly conscious of expressing ourselves through the medium of clothing or we can choose to wear whatever it is that is most easily available to us.
We can extend this to the aesthetics of the location where you live, the abode you live in, the possessions you own and perhaps your romantic partner.
Purposeful, conscious, life curation.
I guess for me it has been growing older and being more attuned to what I want out of life, having a deeper understanding of how the world works and changing my life and goals accordingly.
We have a limited time here. If you have a vision for your life, moving towards it carefully is a great option.
-Shernon Hague
Cover photograph by Shernon Hague | Nara, Japan 2016 | 35mm film