Art is inseparable from life. Whether it is seen or not, everything inherently is art by its very fabric of being — all that can be made, done, said, and in some ways even thought. All that simply is, is itself in possession of some aesthetic qualifications, and in more than simply the superficial visual manner of a painting or sculpture. The very essence, or honed being, of existence, has its own scale of elegance. This simple observation points to the vital place aesthetic differentiation must play. If everything which is, is art — then what of those with no appreciation for this truth? Those with a complete void of taste, carelessly and ignorantly blundering through life, oblivious to their wake of destruction, and stains left behind on all with which they deal?

Consider the devoted hacker — the code whiz who has taught himself all that he knows and takes pride in the elegance and beauty of his code. Any program written by this person will be fast, clean, efficient, relatively bug-free, and will do precisely what it is meant to do — and it will do it right. Any errors which turn up will be quickly repaired, and the program will in the end be invisible to its user, allowing him to simply do what he needs to do without adding to his problems. The corporate programmer, trained second-hand, ignorant of the value of code itself and merely interested in getting paid at the end of the day, has no compunction to do his job right. If his code can be executed, and the program seems to run, then his job is complete and he no longer has to think about it. Due to this obliviousness and lack of care, we end up with bloated, bug-ridden software which runs slowly, interacts poorly with both the end user and his computer, and eventually gets in the way of the user’s goal of simply accomplishing his desired tasks.

The same general principles can be applied to anything from communication to driving to bodily movement to diet to science to logic to traditional art to one’s outlook on life and way of organizing thought. Art is so pervasive that good art — works of taste, of aesthetic value — is a valuable commodity. In general this world is a sloppy aesthetic wasteland — at least the manmade portion of it. It is sufficiently rare that people take heed of their actions and strive for the better and the more artful that any rare pockets of sophistication found become of great value.

In the depressing miasmal void of daily life, enlightenment and inspiration become beacons, showing the way to what is perhaps the most ideal universe; one where art, as a segregated concept, would be without need. For the world we have now, a sense of taste can be a curse, with art as the only oasis from the daily bombard and the only sympathetic voice in hell. Enlightenment can, however, be infectious, and inspiration comes in waves. With enough voices, the world might be changed for at least a short while. For this revolutionary goal, taste is the only weapon.