The café was filled with the gentle hum of conversation and the occasional hiss of steamed milk being prepared. I sat by the window, perfectly positioned where the light hit just right. My iced matcha latte was untouched, the condensation sliding down the glass as I carefully adjusted my phone to capture the perfect shot.
Outside, the city pulsed with something heavier. A protest had taken place just a few blocks away, leaving behind signs and footsteps that led nowhere. The headlines from this morning’s news still lingered, but here, inside this little bubble of perfection with nothing but a latte and a phone, none of it seemed to exist.
And maybe that’s the problem.
We live in a world that feels like it’s coming apart at the seams, yet many prefer to escape into an existence of carefully curated perfection rather than face the uncertainty of it all. Rent is skyrocketing. Wages are stagnant. Political wars rage on, their consequences spilling into daily life in ways people don’t want to think about. The climate is changing faster than policy can keep up with it. But instead of facing these burdens of the real world, people retreat into an illusion with perfectly arranged bookshelves, soft summer mornings, and the idea that if their world looks put together, then maybe it actually is.
There’s something unsettling about how easily people detach from reality. They scroll past stories of political corruption and economic collapse, eyes searching for something more pleasant: an aesthetic morning routine, a minimalist workspace, a perfectly plated meal. They don’t want to engage with the weight of the world because it doesn’t fit into their curated existence. But ignorance, no matter how beautifully arranged, doesn’t make problems disappear.
The desire to make everything aesthetic has stripped people of their ability to sit with discomfort. They don’t want to think about the fact that millions are struggling to afford basic necessities, that elections are being swayed by misinformation, that history is repeating itself in ways that should terrify us. Instead, they want soft colors, clean lines, and a sense of control. However life isn’t meant to be controlled like that. Inevitably, it’s messy, unpredictable, and, more often than not, deeply unfair.
Even activism has been reduced to an aesthetic. A neatly designed infographic, a reposted headline, a fleeting moment of “awareness” before moving on. But awareness isn’t enough. Change isn’t easy, and it doesn’t happen in pastel tones. It’s uncomfortable, complex, and requires more than a sense of acknowledgment. It demands action, conversation, and a willingness to see the world as it is— not just as we want it to be.
There’s nothing wrong with finding beauty in small moments, but when the pursuit of aesthetics becomes a way to avoid reality, it turns into something far more dangerous than it appears. It becomes a shield, a distraction, a way to turn away from the world when turning away is the very thing that allows injustice to thrive.
Beauty should inspire us, not blind us. Because no matter how carefully we curate our lives, the world outside the frame still exists, and it needs us to see it.
