The Meaning of Life by The School of Life

Author:The School of Life
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Publisher: The School of Life Press
Published: 2019-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

The temple of Athena on the Acropolis of Athens.

The Greeks created Athena’s temple-home to represent in architecture what she represented as a deity: grace, balance, wisdom and harmony. We can create our own temple-homes to embody our own values and characteristics.

The Greeks took such care over Athena’s temple-home because they understood the human mind. They knew that, without architecture, we struggle to remember what we care about – and more broadly who we are. To be told in words that Athena represented grace and balance was not enough on its own. There needed to be a house to bring the idea forcefully and continuously to consciousness.

Without there being anything grandiose or supernatural in the idea, our homes are also temples; they are temples to us. We are not expecting to be worshipped, but we are trying to make a place that – like a temple – adequately embodies our spiritual values and merits.

Creating a home is frequently such a demanding process because it requires us to find our way to objects that can correctly convey our identities. We may have to go to enormous efforts to track down what we deem to be the ‘right’ objects for particular functions, rejecting hundreds of alternatives that would in a material sense be perfectly serviceable, in the name of those we believe can faithfully communicate the right messages about who we are. We become fussy because objects are, in their own ways, all hugely eloquent. Two chairs that perform much the same physical role can articulate entirely different visions of life.

One chair by the Swiss 20th-century architect Le Corbusier speaks of efficiency, excitement about the future, international spirit, impatience around nostalgia and devotion to reason. The other, by the English 19th-century designer William Morris, speaks of the superiority of the pre-industrial world, the beauty of tradition, the appeal of patience and the pull of the local. We may not play out such precise scripts in our heads when we see the chairs, but, just below the threshold of consciousness, we may be highly responsive to the messages that such objects beam out to the world.

An object feels ‘right’ when it speaks attractively about qualities that we are drawn to, but don’t possess strong enough doses of in our day-to-day lives. The desirable object gives us a more secure hold on values that are present, yet fragile, in ourselves; it endorses and encourages important themes in us. The smallest things in our homes whisper to us; they offer us encouragement, reminders, consoling thoughts, warnings or correctives, as we make breakfast or do the accounts in the evening.

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