I am booting up the more practical aspects of writing to provide value, as opposed to the writing I do here, which is to provide a thinking space for myself, and if I’m lucky occasionally my notes will help someone else.
Setting out to provide utility to others is a much higher bar as I’d want the content to meet my own expectations for value. I don’t have necessarily have expectations for utility here even if it provides it more than I’d expect.
I am enjoying preparing posts with research, and the next post teaches a little about the Protestant Reformation and The Enlightenment’s role in the great “Male Renunciation” of appearance.
Afew short centuries upended thousands of years of cultural norms that showcased the importance of masculine beauty and taste and replaced it with a drab mind first Cartesian split.
If I’m going to put together historical context, I figure it has to help the reader feel freed enough to experiment with their own world and consider that they can regain lost or hidden knowledge that was once foundational. In this case how masculinity communicated power, status and taste through appearance.
If you are aspiring to better yourself, to pursue an aristocracy of the soul, we will start with mastering the basic ingredients you will encounter in a drugstore and how they might build into reclaiming your appearance. We will go from there to Pareto-optimal options for building a habit that helps age well and look its best.
So I am having a bit of fun thinking about appearances. Anything anyone of us can do to free up another human to choose a life that is better for them is worth the time.