Useful Or Beautiful

William Morris once said “If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

There’s an elegant simplicity to this idea. 

To implement it, though, requires a ruthlessness that we won’t all be comfortable practicing. 

In the first instance, it requires that we consciously, in practice, evaluate our choices using this rule. That we actively reject the natural and inherent laziness that sets in as we make our commercial choices. Don’t just do - we must think and do. 

And second, even as we are conscious (especially as we are conscious) about our process, we must maintain a discipline and an awareness of what we want to be, about who we want to be. 

We can’t worry about our impulses and our compulsions. We can’t worry about what others might think, who others might want to be. 

We just have to decide to be ourselves and not apologize for it. 

Of course, there may be personal and social consequences, and that in and of itself, will dissuade most of us from pursuing this ideal. 

But, for those willing to persevere, I suspect those consequences are short term. 

In the end, we’ll gravitate towards what’s right.