An experience of beauty," wrote the American art critic Peter Schjeldahl, "always resembles a conversion experience, the mind's joyful capitulation to a recovered or new belief. The merely attractive (pretty, glamorous) and merely pleasing (lovely, delectable) are not beauty, because they lack the element of belief and the feeling of awe that announces it. The attractive or pleasing enhances the flow of my feelings. The beautiful halts the flow, which recommences in a changed direction."

Convenience is the most underestimated and least understood force in the world today. All around the world, convenience—more efficient and easier ways of doing personal tasks—has emerged as perhaps the most powerful driver shaping our individual lives and our economies. Convenience seems to make our decisions for us, trumping what we like to imagine are our true preferences. Easy is better; easiest is best. While convenience has its benefits, it also has a dark side. It makes us lazy—spoiled by immediacy. This is a fact we are witnessing right now amidst the pandemic.