Last week, I decided to improve my life. I didn't do this by saving money or exercising. Instead, I attempted to create a "Capsule Wardrobe." The internet told me that if I owned exactly ten "timeless" items that were mostly beige, mostly expensive, and mostly lacking structure, I would no longer be a chaotic person. I would be Curated. I would be Chic.

So, I bought The Trench Coat.  

It was the colour of "Oatmeal" (a food, coincidentally, that I also find depressing). In the photograph, it appeared like a liquid shield of elegance. Online, the model wearing it looked mysterious and busy, as if she were on her way to break up with a poet in a café. It had no wrinkles. It had no shadows. It seemed less like fabric and more like a filter.  

I put it on yesterday. I stood in front of the mirror, waiting for the transformation. However, the only thing I saw was a beige rectangle staring back at me. I channelled Magritte and whispered to my reflection: "Ceci n'est pas un trench coat, ma chérie." (This is not a trench coat, my darling.) And I was right. Because if this were the fashion statement from the magazine, I would look chic. Instead, I looked like I was about to open the flaps and whisper, "Hey buddy, wanna buy a Rolex?" 

I didn't look like a Parisian muse. I looked like a man selling counterfeit watches in a damp alley.

Byung-Chul Han and the "Aesthetics of the Smooth" 

Why did this beige fabric offend me so much? Why did the immediately creased elbows feel like a failure? The philosopher Byung-Chul Han offers a diagnosis. In his book Saving Beauty, he discusses our modern obsession with "The Smooth".

Han argues that the defining aesthetic of our era is the sleek, polished surface. Consider face cream adverts where the models' faces appear unnaturally stretched and flawlessly smooth, like a plate in your grandma’s vitrine, never used. Think of the sculptures by Jeff Koons. 

The "Smooth" obsession is rooted in positivity. It offers no resistance. It requires no interpretation. It simply states, "Like me."  

My Capsule Wardrobe was an attempt to transform myself into a Jeff Koons sculpture. I aimed to be Smooth. I wanted to be a "frictionless subject," a person with no edges, no mess, and no history of spilling espresso.

But Han warns us: "The Smooth is the absence of the Other." It is a world of pure "Same." By trying to look "timeless" and "clean," I was attempting to erase the evidence of my own life. The wrinkle in my coat is what Han calls "Negativity." It is the injury that proves I exist.

A smooth coat is a fantasy. A wrinkled coat is reality.

Most experts aren't limited by their expertise. They're slowed by scattered tools that don't connect. Starter platforms, point solutions, and mismatched workflows create chaos, cap revenue, and dilute credibility.

Kajabi is the operating system for human expertise. Identity, strategy, products, marketing, payments, and client transformation all working together in one place.

No more guessing. No more fragmentation. No more ceiling on your growth.

Clarity replaces confusion. Simplicity replaces complexity. Growth becomes intentional.

You move faster because everything connects. Built to scale, not stall.

If your expertise is real, your system should be too.

Start Your Free Trial

Wearing such a light colour is not just a fashion choice; it is a statement of complete vulnerability. It leaves no shadows to hide behind, no dark corners where a spilt drop of espresso can disappear. Instead, the fabric acts like a high-definition screen, exposing my clumsiness for all to see.

This perfectly aligns with what Han describes as the "compulsion of transparency." He suggests that modern society forces us to become visible, understandable, and immaculate, leaving no room for secrets or shadows. The trench coat exemplifies this transparency. It compels me to lead a "beige life”, one where I never sit on a dirty bench, never chase after a bus, and never enjoy tomato soup.

It requires a body that does not interact with the world, merely gliding through it. But I do not glide. I collide. I am a friction-filled being, and my coat bears the cost of it.

Han also writes that true beauty requires a "sting" or an "injury": something that shocks us out of our complacency. My cat is the master of the injury. She saw the "Oatmeal" lying on the chair. She did not see a "timeless investment piece." She saw a texture that was suspiciously too smooth. She decided to fix it.  

She approached and began to knead the fabric with her claws. 

Snag. Pull. Rip. 

In seconds, she had pulled tiny threads from the smooth weave. She added a layer of black fur as well. She transformed the "High Definition" coat into a low-resolution fuzzy object.

I believe Han would be on her side. She disrupted the "Smooth." She introduced "Negativity." She transformed a mass-produced object into a unique, specific item, which is a coat damaged by this very cat. She broke the spell of the Capsule. The coat is no longer perfect; it is now damaged. And because it is damaged, it is finally real. It is no longer a Pinterest image. It is a coat that exists in a house with a predator. 

I put the coat back on. It has a coffee stain. It has cat hair. It has snags in the sleeve. It looks terrible. But it also looks like me. Han says that "The Smooth accumulates no history." My coat is definitely gathering history at a rapid pace. It is an archive of my clumsiness and my cat’s affection (suspicious).  

I walked out the door. The wind blew the hem open. I stepped into a puddle. The beige darkened. The Capsule is broken. The smoothness is gone. I am a wrinkled, stained human being walking through a messy world. And honestly? It’s much more comfortable than being a sculpture. 

See you next time. Keep the stains, 

Asena

RABBIT HOLE

Every week, I fall down a few rabbit holes. I gather here some insightful things (I don’t promise) I have read, watched, and discovered over the last seven days. If you’re looking for a bit of wonder, click the links below to explore more.

I’ve been reading this geology book, A Little History of the Earth, that is extremely serious about being a geology book. It’s all magma, mountains, tectonic plates, and the Earth’s core. Everything is very scientific and, frankly, non-negotiable.

After several chapters of unquestionable facts about lava, I needed a small act of rebellion. So I started keeping this amusing book, Medieval Cats, by Dr Catherine Nappington, nearby and opening it between sessions.

Surprisingly, it helps. The geology book explains how the world came to be. This funny book explains … uhmm, I don’t really know 🙃cats in weird shapes …. maybe?

I learned that Van Gogh painted some irises and casually mentioned in a letter that they were purple. Today, they are blue.

So the Getty Museum assembled a small army of scientists to investigate what happened to the missing purple. They used X-rays, chemical scans, and machines, all to confirm a shocking truth: you know what? paint… changes.

It turns out Van Gogh mixed red pigment into blue to make purple. Over time, sunlight gently removed the red, leaving the blue behind. The painting didn’t change style; it just aged.

Look at the purple version below.

At first glance, I thought this was a human-made artwork inspired by nature; the arrangement of the fish looked too deliberate and aesthetic to be real.

Only later did I realise that it was actually a fossil: a group of Knightia eocaena, a small schooling freshwater herring from the Eocene epoch. These fish, about 10 cm long, come from the Green River Formation’s “sandwich beds,” where large numbers of fish were preserved together after sudden die-offs.

It is still art to me, deep geological time frozen in stone.

Below, you can explore more of these.

I saw a painting of King Charles II being handed a pineapple, as though it were a marriage proposal.

And I thought to myself, it’s the 1600s, what’s a pineapple doing there?

It turns out that time, pineapples were the ultimate status symbol. They were so hard to grow in Europe that a single fruit could cost the equivalent of $8,000 today. Because they were too expensive to actually eat, people would rent them.

You could pay a fee to carry a pineapple around at a party for the evening, just to show people you could afford to hold it. Then you returned it the next day so the shopkeeper could rent it to someone else. Lol.

You can read the whole story here:

That’s it. You’ve now officially reached the bottom. Thank you for reading. ❤️ Your reward this week is this koala, because the title wasn’t confusing enough on its own.

If this email has been forwarded to you, blame your friend. Then join here →