Once you have achieved mastery—once you have become a Ronin, self-directed and relentless in the pursuit of excellence—what then?
What is it all for?
What is the meaning of life?
Think back to The Last Samurai. What struck you about the village where Katsumoto and his people lived?
It wasn’t just their discipline.
It wasn’t just their combat prowess.
It wasn’t even their way of life.
It was beauty and harmony.
Everything they did—every movement, every action—was an expression of beauty.
The way they trained.
The way they prepared tea.
The way they arranged their gardens.
This is not a small thing.
When you truly experience beauty, you are experiencing meaning itself.
Western science tells us:
“The universe is the joint product of the observer and the observed.”
Eastern philosophy tells us:
“The knower, the knowing, and the known are one.”
So from this vantage point, what is beauty?
It is not an external thing—it is a deep part of yourself.
Beauty is not the backdrop for a selfie. It is the direct link to meaning itself. For all your life, in every conversation, in every philosophy course, you have been searching for the meaning of life in subject-predicate form—something you could define in words.
But life and meaning exist beyond words. And the experience of beauty is your direct link to it.
Now let’s take another run at this question—but from another movie.
One of the greatest ever made—Blade Runner. Each time you watch it, new questions emerge.
Here’s what matters: In a dystopian future there are synthetic humans—replicants—engineered to work on off-world colonies. They have superhuman abilities—but a short life span.
They aren’t supposed to develop emotions. But a few awaken—realizing their own mortality, and seeking a way to live longer. This is a considerable achievement that many of those clinically alive fail to achieve.
They escape to Earth.
Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is tasked with hunting them down. And he does. But at the end, in his final confrontation with their leader, Roy Batty, something extraordinary happens.
Watch the clip below.
Roy Batty, dying, speaks his last words:
“I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain.”
He has lived. He has seen beauty. And now, he is fading.
But in that final moment—he knows:
That was enough.
Not power.
Not control.
Not status.
Just the experience of life’s beauty.
That was enough.
You want to have these sights.
But not in the banal, modern way—not as an endless collection of selfies in exotic locations, documenting nothing but where you stood.
To truly see beauty is not about the setting.
It is in the moment.
It is in the details.
It is in something as simple as a dinner table:
Or in something as mundane as a daily drive:
This isn’t given to you. This is yours to create. It is a choice.
Seek beauty.
Because in that search, you will find meaning.
Each day, take one photo.
Not for Instagram.
Not for an audience.
Not to document where you were.
Take it for yourself.
Because one day, when it is your time to die, you will not care about titles, money, or status.
You will enter a time warp—your mind will walk through a phantasmagorical art museum built from your own memories.
And what will be there?
Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I’ll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o’er,
As you stand before your life’s gallery, what will you see?
The world is overflowing with beauty. But only if you choose to see it. Seek beauty, and in doing so find meaning. And when the time comes, you will know—it was enough.
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You want to have these sights. And having them is not just a matter of taking banal selfies in exotic settings, rather it is in being able to see the beauty in something as mundane as how a table is set, with the various wine glasses partially full, and the lights flicker, while her hands dance about like two white doves mating. It could be a grouping of trees on your daily drive, and it can be the landscaping by some small house. This is all there for you to create with your desire.
Seek beauty and store these memories so that when it is your time to die, you can relish them all as if you were alone in some vast phantasmagorical art museum, whose works of art were your life’s perceptions. And as you wander alone through that vast collection of experiences and treasures, how can you help but be?
Our exercise for Seeking Beauty is to each day take one picture with your iPhone, and imagine that…
Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I’ll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o’er,
So that when your heart beats its last, whether on a battlefield or in a hospice, there is a time warp, and you enter that phantasmagorical art museum we mentioned earlier. And here all your iPhotos are rendered perfect, some are as large as a two story wall, others are 8×10, and if you photographed an object, say a jewelry box or a suit of armor, it is there on a pedestal. And if you took a shot of an aquarium, it too is there, the gardens and forest you recorded are behind crystal clear windows that are sixteen feet by twenty-four feet and when you stand in front of that window, you will again smell the scent that went with that moment, and hear the sounds as well. If you were there with a loved one, you will almost hear them, you will feel them for a moment, before you move on to the next exhibit.
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