Somebody has to start. So why not us?
The Renaissance did not happen because everyone accepted reality as it was. It happened because people had had enough of control, of misery, of mediocrity. They craved aliveness. They craved truth, freedom, beauty. As the old feudal structures crumbled, explorers, artists, scientists, and lovers of wonder began forging new paths. What drove them was not fear of survival. It was something far more powerful: Beauty.
But what is beauty, really?
Beauty is a transcendental experience. A fleeting moment where the inner and outer world come into perfect resonance. It is not just something we see. It is something we feel with all of our senses. It stops time. It brings us home to ourselves. It dissolves fear. As Dr. Zach Bush reminds us: “At the cellular level, and below that at the atomic level, built into the fabric of nature, is the drive for beauty.”.
That is why nobody is immune to beauty. Because it is already in us. It is what we are made of. When we witness true beauty, we experience love. We remember the sacredness of life, of nature, and of ourselves. We remember our innate and inseparable connection to nature and the universe. Beauty is not an escape. It is a return. A homecoming. A moment of being fully alive, with no masks, no roles, no filters. Like a child seeing snow for the first time. No analysis. Just wide eyes and inner joy.
The Second Renaissance has already begun.
As the old systems of domination and depletion, neo-capitalism, hyper-consumerism, cling to relevance, more and more people are waking up. The pressure is growing, and with it, a new kind of courage. A new kind of motivation. Intrinsically driven. Diamonds form under pressure. So does evolution.
We are rediscovering that we are not isolated individuals, but part of a larger living system. A superorganism in motion, in coherence, in awe. We are remembering how to move together, not in competition but in harmony and cooperation. It is not just a dream. It is happening.
At the heart of this movement is the timeless trinity revered by ancient philosophers: Beauty, Truth, and Goodness.
These three are like tuning forks for the soul. When they vibrate in harmony, they awaken something deep in us. A sense of AWE. A feeling that we are part of something more than ourselves. That we belong. A feeling of unity. They are the door back to our innocence, seeing the world through the eyes of a child.
This is not only poetry. It is science.
Research at UC Berkeley by Dacher Keltner and his team has shown that of all positive emotions tested, including joy, love, gratitude, and compassion, AWE produced the strongest effect on the human immune system: the lowest levels of Interleukin-6, a protein linked to depression, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.
Why? Because awe pulls us out of self-referential thinking and places us inside something larger. The nervous system reads that shift as safety. Inflammation drops. Presence returns. This is why nature heals. Why the ocean calms what words cannot reach. Why a cathedral silences the mind. Why music can bring us to tears for no reason we can name.
Wonder is not a luxury. It is medicine. And creating the conditions for awe is at the heart of everything we do.
As Roger Scruton beautifully put it:
“Beauty matters. It is not just a subjective thing but a universal need of human beings.”
And here is the paradox that lights a spark in us:
The things we often call “useless,” like art, love, friendship, music, or beauty, are the very things that stay with us forever. That inspire us. That shape our world into something worth living in.
Creations made purely for function disappear when their function fades. But what is made with beauty at its core, what is made from a place of meaning, wonder, and love, lasts. It is original. It is made from essence. It lives on. It continues to move us, even generations later.
Or as Scruton said so playfully and profoundly to express this paradox:
“Put usefulness first, and you lose it. Put beauty first, and what you do will be useful forever. Nothing is more useful than the useless.”
This is why we are not afraid to create things that do not need to justify themselves. That defy logic. They speak to our soul.
Because in beauty, we find truth. In truth, we find goodness. And in goodness, we remember who we really are. The wide eyes before the filter. The laughter before the reason. The moment before the mind says “be serious now.”
I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults.
SHIGERU MIYAMOTO – Video Game Designer
Beauty. Awe. Play. They are the same thing, experienced from three different angles. And when they come together, life becomes what it was always meant to be:
Life is a game, kid. It all depends on how yoy play.
SUPER MARIO – Plumber. Still jumping into the unknown without a business plan.