Note: The text below is the transcript of the YouTube video above.
Let me ask you something.
When you make a decision, what guides you?
What to wear to an important meeting.
Where to go for dinner with your partner.
How to spend tonight.
They say we make around 35,000 decisions every single day.
That’s kind of mind-blowing, isn’t it?
But I’ve been thinking, are we really choosing for ourselves?
Today, I want to talk about aesthetic sense with you. It’s one of those things that becomes a standard for how we choose. Let’s take our time and think about it together.
Hi, I’m Satomi Takayama.
I’m an artist, but I also spent over 10 years in the corporate world, in both Tokyo and London. Numbers, logic, efficiency. I was in that left-brain world for so long.
These days, AI is just part of our everyday reality, right? In business, in how we navigate our lives, logic and efficiency alone aren’t enough to set us apart anymore. But when you think about it, what can we as humans offer that’s different? Well, one answer to that can be aesthetic sense.
There’s actually a Japanese book about this called Why Do Global Elites Train Their Aesthetic Sense. And reading it made me realize how important this topic is, especially in today’s world. That’s why I really wanted to share it with you.
But let me give you a bit of background on why I suddenly got interested in aesthetic sense. It actually started when I came back to Japan after living in London for a while. Details in the interiors, wrapping paper on sweets. Everyday life in Japan just has this incredible sense of beauty. Coming back after being away, I was really moved by it all over again. I know I’m probably biased since I’m Japanese, but that experience made me start wondering about aesthetic sense.
There’s so much to explore with this topic that I’ve split it into two parts. In Part 1 today, we’ll dig into some deeper questions. Why do humans seek beauty in the first place? And why does aesthetic sense matter so much in how we live and work?
In Part 2, I’ll talk about how to develop this aesthetic sense. I’ll share stories from my own life, from my childhood to my time in London, along with some ideas you might find helpful.
This video is a bit longer, so maybe grab a coffee, relax, and let’s explore this together.
Okay, so let’s think about this for a moment. Why do we even like beautiful things in the first place?
It’s not just about taste or preference. It turns out, it’s actually instinct. Something that’s wired into us to help us survive.
There’s this thing called evolutionary psychology that looks at this. When we see a landscape with trees, water, and an open view, and we think it’s beautiful, that’s not random. Way back, those places meant food, safety, and protection from predators. Beauty was a signal that you could survive there.
Even now, when we see a stylish room or someone dressed well on Instagram, we unconsciously think they probably have it together, that they’re capable and reliable, right? That’s our instinct picking up on signs of capability and resources, seeing them as someone who could be a good ally.
And there’s also neuroaesthetics. Researchers found that when we see something beautiful, our brain’s reward system lights up. The same part that activates when we get something pleasant or rewarding. For our brain, beauty itself is a kind of reward.
Philosophers have been thinking about this for ages too. Plato said beauty has the power to guide people towards goodness. Kant described it as a kind of pure joy without any calculation. Not because it’s useful or will impress someone, but simply because it makes your chest feel a little lighter. It’s that kind of feeling that doesn’t need a reason.
So aesthetic sense isn’t something superficial. It’s one of the core human capacities that helps us choose better environments, find balance, and ultimately, live better.
That’s one big reason why we’re instinctively drawn to beauty.
But how does this connect to our lives today?
Why is aesthetic sense becoming more important than ever?
Studies show that art, whether you’re viewing it or making it, helps reduce stress, improves your mood, and increases your overall life satisfaction.
But I feel there’s something even more important here.
We’re living in a world where what’s good and what’s beautiful are heavily influenced by algorithms and trends. We scroll through recommendations and rankings, and suddenly, things with the most likes start looking like the better choice.
That’s exactly why we need our own compass. What actually moves me? What do I find beautiful? That personal measure, that’s aesthetic sense. And I think that’s becoming essential these days.
To dig deeper into this idea of aesthetic sense as a compass, I want to bring up that book I mentioned earlier, Why Do Global Elites Train Their Aesthetic Sense by Shu Yamaguchi.
The book was written a while ago, and I’m sure similar discussions have been happening in the West for longer. But reading it again in today’s AI-driven world made me think this conversation is more relevant than ever.
In the book, Yamaguchi points out that executives at global companies and people working at the forefront of industries aren’t going to art museums to show off their cultural knowledge. They’re doing it for a very practical reason.
In today’s complex, unstable world, relying only on analysis, logic, and reason, what he calls science-driven decision-making, isn’t enough to navigate business anymore.
Logical, rational answers can eventually be reached by anyone with proper training. It just takes time. And when that happens, the market floods with similar products and services all based on the same correct answers. Before you know it, you’re stuck in a crowded market where everyone is offering almost the same thing.
And if you try to survive there, all you’re left with is speed and cost. You end up exhausting your people, locked in an endless efficiency race.
So basically, a world that relies only on logic is a world where everyone arrives at the same right answer and ends up burning out together.
When I read this, I thought back to my marketing job in London. Every day, I was chasing numbers, analysing data, putting together presentations with solid logic. It was my first job in the UK, and I learned so much. But when ChatGPT came out, I had this immediate gut feeling. Oh, AI is going to replace this.
Because the work I was doing, finding the logical correct answer, that’s exactly what AI is really good at.
But this isn’t just about business, is it? If we live our lives based only on what’s logical, we end up looking like everyone else. We lose what makes us… us.
So what does Yamaguchi say?
In the end, what you can rely on is your personal aesthetic sense.
No matter how much data and logic you pile up, there’s always some grey area that can’t be resolved. In those moments, the question becomes, which option feels more beautiful? Which one fits our story better? Without that kind of sensitivity-based judgement, you simply can’t make the call.
For example, he talks about Google acquiring YouTube. At the time, critics said it was too expensive, that it wouldn’t be profitable. But Google looked at their mission, to organise the world’s information, and decided video was information too, so of course they should include it. They prioritised their philosophy over short-term profit. And that decision helped shape their massive success.
Same with Apple’s iPod, their music player from back in the day. I used to have one too and took it everywhere. While other companies were competing on specs and features, Steve Jobs kept it simple. A thousand songs in your pocket. Not a list of technical details, but a feeling, an experience. That kind of aesthetic sense is what really set them apart.
That’s why Yamaguchi says leaders need to make decisions based on intuition and sensitivity, on their aesthetic sense. And that needs to be grounded in questions like, what do we actually want to do? How do we want to change the world?
Yamaguchi also quotes from another writer’s work. In his book The Way to See the Essence, Terumasa Nakanishi writes, why do humans need aesthetics and morals? One reason, he says, is that ultimately they’re actually very efficient. When you look at things from a higher perspective, with a bigger picture in mind, and you stay consistent with that, it becomes efficient in a much larger sense. I find this idea quite interesting.
Our world can be pretty complicated and full of conflicting ideas. So in the middle of all that, having your own sense of aesthetics and morals, knowing how you really want to live, that becomes what keeps you grounded.
So far I’ve been talking about the business side, but there’s also this really interesting research that connects art and logical thinking in other areas.
A team at Michigan State University did this study on Nobel Prize winners and scientists. And what they found was that Nobel Prize winners were about 2.8 times more likely to have artistic hobbies, like painting or playing music, compared to regular scientists. I was actually surprised when I learned that Einstein loved playing the violin, and Galileo used to paint watercolours. I had no idea.
So art and science, sensitivity and logic, they’re not separate things. Maybe having both is what really helps us level up. Stories like this make us want to pick up a new hobby, right?
Logic alone can’t create differentiation.
Maybe Yamaguchi’s words stayed somewhere in the back of my mind. Because when I finally got my UK permanent residency, which is something I’d been working toward for so long, I made the decision to leave my full-time job. I’d been juggling art and work for years, but at that point, I chose to focus on my creative journey.
Of course, AI is coming into the art world too. My stance is that AI isn’t something to fear. It’s an incredible innovation that can expand our world in ways we haven’t imagined, and I want to learn how to work alongside it.
But at the same time, as a creator, in a world where things like AI and social media are changing so rapidly, I started asking myself, what do I really want to share with the world? What do I want to do with my life?
That question is actually part of what led me to start this YouTube channel. The experiences I’ve had in different countries, what I’ve actually felt, the whole messy process of figuring things out. I wanted to share that. That real, lived experience that nothing else can replace.
So on this channel, I’m not trying to make content that appeals to everyone. I’m sharing things I genuinely find beautiful and fascinating, things like art, philosophy, craftsmanship, and more.
I keep coming back to Yamaguchi’s words. In the end, what you can rely on is your personal aesthetic sense. That’s what I want to spend my time and energy on now, refining that sensitivity.
What about you?
We’re in a time where logic and data alone can’t make us stand out anymore. I believe our individual sensitivity, the unique way each of us sees the world, that’s what will become our real strength going forward. I really believe that.
To be honest, making videos in English takes way more time and energy than I imagined. It’s not my first language. I actually only started practising it seriously when I moved to London eight or nine years ago. It still doesn’t feel completely natural for me to speak English in front of a camera. So I don’t know yet if this was the right choice.
But because I’m talking about topics I genuinely care about, and going a bit deeper, I sometimes receive such thoughtful comments from you. That’s become a huge source of learning for me. And that, I think, is the world I want to create here on YouTube.
Alright, I know I got a bit intense with the theory part today.
But what you probably want to know is, okay, so what do I actually do?
In Part 2, I’ll talk about how to develop this aesthetic sense. I’ll share stories from my own life, from my childhood to my time in London, along with some ideas you might find helpful.
Make sure you don’t miss it by subscribing to the channel. Just that one click on the subscribe button is a huge step toward helping me bring the bigger projects I’m working on to life. I’ll also share updates through my newsletter, so feel free to sign up for that if you want to stay in the loop.
And I want this channel to be more than just me talking at you. I want it to be a space where we all share our experiences and thoughts freely. So if today’s video sparked something for you, or if you have your own stories, I’d love to hear them in the comments. Let’s learn from each other and make this a space we build together.
Thank you so much for watching until the end.
If you enjoyed this video, I think you’ll also love my video on Japanese gardens, so please check that one out next.
I’ll see you in Part 2.
