I want people to follow their feelings, their moral sense, in how they design, as well as develop new technology. Otherwise, I am scared of how humans will strive towards new technology, as suggested on page 400. As Ge recognizes in the following pages, the pursuit of technology for its own sake is meaningless, and, as suggested in the revisit to Principle 1.15, it is essential for a designer to fuse it with values. Can we be artful about the way we develop technology in addition to the way we use technology in our designs? Can we choose to believe in our feelings as much as our thoughts, as suggeted by the Charlie Chaplin quote on page 406?
Irrational beliefs are central to my spirituality, which guides the way I live. On page 409, I learned that Kant described such beliefs as categorical imperatives. The exemplary categorical imperative that I follow is to eat a plate of lettuce (leafy greens) and fruit after my meals. Crunchy vegetables like carrots or cabbage suffice in lieu of a plate of lettuce. The practice of eating lettuce is eudaemonic for me. In form, the lettuces' leafy crunch, their rich colors, and their wet bitterness constitute a rich sensory experience in their eating. In function, the greens are nutritious, fibrous, and hydrating, making me feel good. Yet, more than the sum of their form and function, my practice of eating lettuce becomes a ritual through repetition and will. My irrational commitment to and joy in the practice makes to eat lettuce sublime. I become true by eating lettuce. Eating lettuce makes me still, in the way sublime art can (page 449). Sometimes, I happily and gently wiggle from side to side as I eat my lettuce. Other such ritual practices of mine include sleeping on a regular schedule, sharing my feelings in socializing, assuming a composed demeanor, and listening while performing music. Without rationale or hypothetical imperative, I believe that these are beautiful practices through which I fulfill my purpose. My commitment to acting on these beliefs constitutes the practical part of my faith. I don't think of my irrational beliefs, or as Ge would call them, my morality, as evidence of my free will, as suggested by Ge in reference to Kant on page 409, but I do see them as important to what Ge would call my authenticity (page 410), and essential to my purpose and self-actualization. My beliefs show how morality is grounded in aesthetic judgement, as explained on page 410.
I am skeptical of the notion of a transcendent beauty beyond comprehension, to which the sublime would be a bridge. Instead, I prefer to conceive of the sublime as a way of embracing that comprehension is an illusion. The world is absurd, and there is no great ideal, but the sublime helps us to see beauty in the absurdity. This nuance distinguishes absurdism from existentialism. This distinction makes me feel better about the fact that the everyday sublime is bittersweet, as Ge says on page 449. Rather than some beauty hidden in the mundane, the sublime shows us the beauty of the mundane. Thus, the transcendent is not a world beyond our own but the very world we inhabit, which we can only see, however, by traversing the sharp razor's edge (p. 456).