The Subtle Art of Appreciating Difficult Beauty
b'When is the last time you paused \\u2014 truly paused the flow of life \\u2014 to appreciate something beautiful? For as long as we know, humans have sought out beauty, believing deeply that beautiful things and experiences can enhance our lives. But what does beauty really do to us? How can it fundamentally alter our experience of the world?\\n\\nBeauty is always \\u201cteaching me something about my own mind,\\u201d says the writer and philosopher Chlo\\xe9 Cooper Jones. In her book, \\u201cEasy Beauty,\\u201d Jones takes readers on a journey across the globe and into her intimate family life to explore what beauty has done for her and what it can potentially do for all of us.\\n\\nAt the core of Jones\\u2019s book \\u2014 and of this conversation \\u2014 is a distinction between two radically different kinds of beauty. On the one hand, there\\u2019s \\u201ceasy beauty\\u201d: a Renaissance painting, a sunset, a deliciously prepared meal. Easy beauty includes the kinds of things we are taught to consider beautiful. But Jones argues there\\u2019s also a deeper form of beauty \\u2014 a \\u201cdifficult beauty,\\u201d which can be found in places that may initially strike us as mundane, messy, even ugly. That is, if we clear the space within our own minds long enough to look for it.\\n\\nThis conversation also explores how Jones\\u2019s relationship to her disabled body has changed over time, what it means to appreciate the physical world more fully, how all of us are affected by our society\\u2019s crushing physical beauty standards, how Jones has created a \\u201cneutral room\\u201d in her mind to cope with those difficult standards, what attending a Beyonc\\xe9 concert taught her about \\u201cradical presence,\\u201d what a celebrity party Peter Dinklage attended revealed about how far we need to go in respecting different bodies, why it is worth it to \\u201cmake friends\\u201d with the idea that we may all become disabled or incapacitated at some point, how children reflect and reveal parts of ourselves we didn\\u2019t even know existed, what advice she has for those of us who spend very little time considering beauty but could benefit from it as Jones has, and more.\\n\\nBook Recommendations:\\n\\nStaring by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson\\n\\nH is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald\\n\\nRomance in Marseille by Claude McKay\\n\\nThis episode is guest-hosted by Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd), a sociologist and writer whose work focuses on higher education policy, race, beauty and more. She is a Times Opinion columnist and the author of \\u201cThick: And Other Essays,\\u201d which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and \\u201cLower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy.\\u201d\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Sonia Herrero and Isaac Jones; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.'