The only thing left was a breathtaking view

One time, in Naperville, I was in the passenger seat of my dad's car, babbling away as usual while the two of us made our weekly mecca to our favorite Mexican restaurant. At the time, I was 17 and still deeply immersed in the coma-inducing process of choosing and applying to colleges. More often than not, during these car rides my prattling had something to do with 1) college, 2) financing my education, or 3) how annoying it was that I was always being forced to talk about college or financing my education. No doubt prompted by one of my teachers or a counselor, during this particular escapade I was attempting to list out the top five things I was looking for in a school--my All Time, Desert Island, Top Five List of what mattered to me most.

I can't remember what #1 was, or, for that matter, #2. Pretty much the only thing that made that car ride memorable at all was the fact that #3 was, "the school has to be pretty." I demanded that my surroundings be aesthetically pleasing. Only two other things seemed immediately more important. If I recall, my dad, over the course of a diplomatically-worded dialogue, politely suggested that my priorities might be skewed.

And of course, he's mostly right, but to this day I stand by my list, since it acknowledged a realistic truth about myself. When I feel like there's beauty around me, I am happier, livelier, and more productive. I probably recycle more. Most people share this sentiment with me, at least at a basic level. Isn't your day slightly improved, for no logical reason, when you're wearing your favorite shirt? Don't you feel great after you get a really good haircut? I like to call it Calvin's Lucky Rocket Ship Underpants Syndrome.

But I wouldn't be surprised if my sensitivity to the CLRSUS were a little freakish. I'm not going to belabor the point, but for myself I've discovered two things to be true: that I frequently (almost constantly) find myself looking around and evaluating the aestheticism of my surroundings, and that when the results are positive, things generally seem to go a little better for me.

When my 17-year-old self was college-searching, it seemed reasonable to take this peculiarity into consideration. If my ability to locate a particularly charming lounge chair was potentially going to be the difference between my ability to write an A versus an A- paper, ridiculous or not, it's a factor. What has always tended to concern me more is how to subsequently figure out if or how this weird little quirk doesn't automatically make me really, really shallow.