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I’ve been pondering this thought a lot since returning to my home town, Sibiu. It’s my home because I was born here but I’ve primarily lived “outside” of it my entire life, having grown up in Canada. After 6 months of being away, I returned to my apartment which happens to be on the periphery of the main city centre. Do I consider myself an outsider? Yes. But it isn’t because I live in the periphery, because I realized after returning that the periphery, here, as well as in many cities, isn’t actually filled with outsiders, but with the majority of inhabitants of that particular place. As a result of many factors from affordability, to more land or safer neighbourhoods, I’ve noticed that most people prefer to live outside of the downtown or core city centre of their respective hometowns.

In Canada, most people don’t live in Toronto for example, they live in the Greater Toronto Area, composed of many cities and suburbs. In Sibiu, most people don’t live in the city centre, but in areas like Vasile Aron, Selimbar, Hipodrom, and Cisnadie to name a few. These are all neighbourhoods, that if you ever visit Sibiu, will give you a more accurate indication of what daily life in this region is actually like. It will show you how people go to work, where the children play outside, how grandmothers spend mornings walking to church. It will show you people’s real socio-economic status and the legacy of communism left behind. It will sometimes appear too crowded and oddly colourful. Rectangular concrete buildings and unexpected potholes at every corner may not make for the most enjoyable bicycle ride, nor will the traffic and several cars honking at you for no reason aside from you taking a little slit of that road away from their drive.

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Sometimes it will even seem downright ugly and senseless, especially in comparison to other cities in the world. Perhaps you will only ever realize this perception if you are an outsider like me. Or if you already realized that this particular chaos is not a effective way to live and resembles a society that seems to always be in a rush to get somewhere despite having seemingly no vision of where it wants to go. Living amongst that can be frustrating, especially when you also do see the good and the potential of what it could all become. However, when you become invested in the place and start to have such thoughts, are you still an outsider? Would an outsider care about the future of a place which they do not reside in? Maybe. But more likely you are beginning to experience life as an “insider”, the thoughts of a local, which are possible even as an outsider. Life on the periphery therefore transforms you into a local.

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Ironically, it is then the people on the inside of the city, the residents of the city centre, that are more outsiders of this place. The city centre is home to few local residents. In comparison to the periphery, it has much less housing, the houses are too expensive for the average salary here, most people don’t desire such old houses, and if they are renting they often find rent unaffordable in this area. So the city centre is home to few local residents & many tourists who come & go. The very architecture of the city centre was designed and developed by what Romanians would call outsiders “the Saxons, Hungarians and Austrians” that once ruled over Transylvania. The architecture is objectively beautiful, the cobblestones are aligned, all of the houses have rooftops with small windows that resemble eyes. It is filled with plenty of cafes, and restaurants, clock towers that every hour strike their bells & fill the landscape. You don’t hear the sound of roaring car engines nor dogs barking in the city centre. It’s small but has enough variety every weekend to keep you entertained, with different shows and performances playing for free in the large & small squares. It is also home to Europe’s largest theatre and film festival (FITS) and in 2007, it won Sibiu the title of European Capital of Culture.

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But if you move to Sibiu today and spend primarily most of your time living in the city centre, as I also did the past few years, you get no real indication of what life here is really like. You live in a bubble, and that bubble is beautiful, until you decide to step outside, to venture beyond it and see what else is there. Now living outside of that bubble, my bubble burst. I did not have the same beautiful perception of Sibiu as I once did. It became more challenging to see beauty everywhere I turned. But while it isn’t as objectively clear, it has given me a new and exciting artistic challenge. I now have to find beauty in contrast.

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This contrast shows up in the odd flower that grows in between the cracks of concrete, the train track road which is dusty and looks abandoned but is still running with the same train that has been carrying travellers to and from places for hundreds of years. I can reconnect with visions from the past when this plot of land used to be open fields that I once cycled across with my grandfather. Now seeing how much it has changed, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse, gives the periphery more character. The periphery speaks to the local experience and the people who are shaping its future and that in and of itself should be studied. It deserves to be documented.

Anyone can capture the beauty of the city centre, that’s easy, it’s obvious. The periphery however, demands a new perspective, it requires a way of presentation that shows beauty as truth because meaningful art and stories can only be found in truth, anything else falls short in its superficiality. Perhaps if you are an outsider, you can agree that life on the outside will always give you new perspective, and maybe that in and of itself is exciting & therefore also beautiful.

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True intellectualism has always been something deeper, something more disciplined, and far less interested in the performance of it all. Our favourite intellectuals didn’t even receive such titles during their time but afterwards. It is not about hierarchy or inherited status, nor is it about positioning oneself above others through jargon or superiority, but about a commitment to a cultivation of thought, taste, moral clarity, and of one’s relationship to the world. The modern intellectual often rejects the conservative past and its rigid social structures, yet still preserves an older tradition of elegance and seriousness: a love of learning, of language, of art, and of ideas that require time to unfold. This is someone who is well-traveled not as a flex or to show off for their Instagram profiles, but as a way of understanding perspective as they move between places across the world. This is someone who still appreciates language and doesn’t intentionally botch it under a series of “likes” “ums” and “ugh”. The well-spoken one who isn’t tried to be pompous but comes as a natural result of reading, listening, and thinking carefully about the information they are exposed to.

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The version of intellectualism that I’m referring to is not elitist, even if it is selective. It does not aspire to exclusivity for its own sake, but it understands that depth cannot exist without effort, and that meaning cannot be compressed into soundbites without being distorted. The intellectual, in this sense, is someone who develops their mind not to dominate conversation, but to contribute. They want to actually bring clarity to all of the noise and real value as opposed to short term gains. For example, take writers like Hermann Hesse, as someone we’d consider as a closer resemblance to the new “intellectual”. He embodies this idea by blending philosophy, spirituality, and lived experience in a way that did not instruct from above, but invited the reader inward, toward self-examination and growth, which is most evident by his characters.

There is also an undeniable aesthetic dimension to intellectualism, one that has resurfaced in recent years under the umbrella of what is often called “dark academia.” While frequently dismissed as a trend, it speaks to something more fundamental: a longing for permanence in an era defined by disposability. The emphasis on books, classical interiors, textured fabrics, and well-made clothing is not simply nostalgic, but resistant. It is a refusal of the cheap, the fast, and the forgettable, and a quiet assertion that quality, whether in thought, art, or material, still matters. Aesthetic choices become philosophical ones, signaling a desire for depth over speed and intention over irony.

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This shift feels particularly resonant against the backdrop of a culture that seems increasingly comfortable with intellectual erosion. A recent New York Magazine essay describing the “Modern Theory of Dumb” argues that our information ecosystem is not failing accidentally, but by design. The constant churn of brain rot content such as memes, TikToks, AI summaries, and algorithm-driven takes has inverted the pyramid of knowledge. Instead of facts forming the foundation for analysis, we now have an overwhelming mass of opinions resting on a fragile base of truth, if any at all.

The consequences of this structure are hard to ignore. We outsource thinking to algorithms we barely understand. We replace nuanced cultural and political analysis with reductive labels that feel explanatory but explain nothing. And we experience a kind of cognitive fatigue that masquerades as engagement, as our brains are forced to process more information than they were ever designed to handle, without the space required to integrate or reflect. This is not stupidity in the traditional sense, but a systemic failure, a system that rewards immediacy, outrage, and oversimplification while eroding our capacity for sustained thought and of course attacking our attention span.

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In this environment, the Dunning–Kruger effect becomes less of an outlier and more of a governing principle bringing into positions of power more and more individuals who are unfit to lead. Confidence untethered from understanding flourishes, and the loudest voices are often the least informed, a dynamic that becomes especially dangerous when those voices gain influence or power. Intellectualism, then, is not an aesthetic indulgence, but a necessary counterbalance. It places the individual in a constant state of self-revision, forcing a reevaluation of beliefs, values, and assumptions as society evolves rather than allowing them to calcify into certainty.

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The renewed appeal of this “new” intellectualism is not about retreating into elitism or reviving old hierarchies, but about reclaiming intentionality in a world that increasingly resists it. It is about choosing depth over distraction, cultivation over consumption, and thoughtfulness over speed. In a culture obsessed with having an opinion, intellectualism asks something far more radical: the willingness to think, to doubt, and to remain open to reflection in an ever changing environment.

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Just think of a red light, for example - a simple way of telling us when to stop and when to go. This symbol alone shows the practical component that shared meaning has in ensuring safety and order in our society. From language, to religious icons, to national emblems, and even fashion, these all function as symbolic systems through which culture is transmitted. As sociologists have argued, symbols are not merely tools for communication, but the building blocks of culture itself. Abstract ideals like justice, freedom, and democracy all depend on symbols to be understood and enacted. It is clear then that society depends on symbols for its existence. They are a necessity, not a superfluous concept to which we casually assign meaning. So why then do we not spend more time thinking about the meaning which the symbols around us carry? Why do we simply accept them as a by-product of our lives?

Much of my curiosity about symbols was sparked by a dream I recently had. I was standing alone in a barren landscape covered in snow when a white horse approached me and allowed me to step onto it and ride through the landscape. When I woke up, I was filled with feelings of peace, clarity, and hope. Of course, I wanted to understand the symbolism behind it.

Since the horse appeared grey white, I searched it up to find that it was likely an “Arabian Horse”. Such horses are bred for endurance and perseverance. So of course this gave me some further clarity on what the dream could mean to my waking life. In the long term, this horse felt like a sign that I am capable of enduring and carrying the long term vision of my goals and I am consciously aware that my choices have placed me in a long term “success” type of path. This has been a recurring theme throughout my life, especially now that I am no longer setting foundations for short term gains, but for the long term. But in a world where success is measured by immediate wins it is easy to lose hope, and it took the horse symbol in this dream to restore it for me.

What followed made the symbol even more impossible to ignore. I opened the book I was reading and the very first page described a horse standing in a snowy landscape. Then I opened my Instagram and the first post I saw referenced the Year of the Horse. There it was again. The horse kept repeating everywhere I looked.

In this case, the symbol was practically begging me not to ignore it. Even though it appeared to me unconsciously, carrying emotional truth, it was clear that I needed to give it some meaning. Meaning did not arrive instantly. It arose only through reflection & some research. I learned however that when a symbol repeats itself externally, consciousness is finding a way to integrate it into a long term orientation toward life. This is exactly what psychologists Carl Jung meant when he said that symbols are not invented by mere coincidence, but surface and guide us when we are willing to listen.

At the individual level, symbols are the subconscious speaking in images. At the societal level, symbols are the collective subconscious speaking through institutions, rituals, myths, and signs. But this leads me to an important question. What happens when symbols lose their connection to meaning? Are they still relevant in and of themselves?

This is where the philosophy of Martin Foss enters the discussion through his work Symbol and Metaphor in Human Experience. Foss is not arguing against symbols. In fact, he believes they are necessary in society to prevent chaos. However, he warns against mistaking symbols for reality itself.

Symbols are and should always remain representations of reality that are then imbued with meaning from the outside, from lived experience.

Foss introduces two failures of symbolism as presented by two schools of thought, the Sensationists and the Rationalists. The Sensationists refuse structure and drown in infinite detail. They attempt to make sense of reality through constant accumulation, but this produces fragmentation and confusion. Endless content, infinite images, and constant novelty exist without hierarchy or meaning. The Rationalists, in their absolute form, also fail by over-structuring reality. They reduce life to systems and treat symbols as final truths, which they cannot be, as symbols always require something beyond themselves to explain and make sense of them. Both approaches depend on each other and cannot exist in isolation.

This means that symbols should be used as tools to help us organize experience, not to replace living it. Symbols may point toward meaning, but they are not meaning itself. Finding a symbol does not mean that meaning has been found. Symbols may be the language through which life speaks to us, but they are not life itself, and they are not meant to be sought for their own sake.

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Why Does this Matter?

Because the quality of our lives is shaped by the symbols we live inside of. We can consciously choose the symbols we place our lives within, or we can inherit them without question. Awareness makes the difference in the direction our lives take. Since we encounter life through symbols that define what is important, what success looks like, and what is worthy of our attention, we risk living inside symbolic systems that prioritize speed, short term gratification, and external validation such as money or status instead of quality of our experiences. These beliefs make life feel rushed, competitive, and hollow.

At Lektura, we want to build our own environment of symbols. We want to take back the power of editing our surroundings. We believe that elegance begins with what you select, that beauty has some defining limits that are objective, that timelessness can be defined & we aim to give it definition. We hope that by becoming aware of our symbols, we ensure that we are not living in reaction to systems we did not design. We want to design our own systems & shape the world in a way that is even more beautiful & meaningful than it has been done before.

“Coincidently” this year marks the Year of the Horse in Chinese Astrology. The horse is a symbol we consciously choose to give meaning to because it embodies what we stand for. Horse symbolism is deeply rooted in mythology, spirituality, and culture, representing power, freedom, endurance, and transformation. Across civilizations, the horse has symbolized strength and vitality, often serving as a vehicle for long journeys and a bridge between inner and outer worlds. Carl Gustav Jung viewed the horse as an archetype of the Self, representing the integration of conscious and unconscious forces.

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When you see the horse, remember that it stands between who you are now and who you have the potential to become. It represents the ability to endure obstacles, to carry a long term vision, and to move forward with courage. This is meaning that we’ve assigned to the horse & to it coinciding to our lived experience.

The real reminder here is that the symbols that resurface in your life are trying to communicate with you. Choose them consciously. Give them meaning. Learn to recognize what they are asking you to become. These symbols are not coincidence. They shape the stories we live by, both individually and collectively. They are necessary for society to exist & so they should be necessary in your individual life.

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• Bi-weekly philosophical questions on what makes the good life, alongside research driven essays integrating history, culture, literature, and modernity

• Entry to our bi-weekly book club and reader community

• An actively updated guide on how to dress, what to read, where to eat, and how to think as an intellectual old soul in the modern world

When Viktor Frankl writes in the opening lines of Man’s Search for Meaning that one of humanity’s greatest struggles is the search for meaning, the entire premise of his work rests on the idea that suffering is an inescapable part of life. According to his logotherapy, meaning is found in three ways: through creating a work or doing a deed, through experiencing something such as goodness, truth, or beauty, and through the attitude one takes toward unavoidable suffering. What allowed Frankl to endure the conditions of the concentration camp was not the absence of suffering, but the presence of a vision for the future, a vision that could exist only if meaning was preserved. That meaning, in turn, was sustained through beauty. Beauty inspires hope, and hope becomes necessary in order to move through the suffering that life inevitably presents.

This idea is echoed across both ancient and modern philosophies, spanning theology, psychology, and even mathematics. We experience beauty when we encounter something we would not know how to improve, something that appears complete in itself. By placing us in contact with an extraordinary form of order or perfection, beauty helps us reconcile ourselves with the imperfections, struggles, and sorrows of the world. There is a psychological need for this encounter with the ideal, for a reminder that despite the disorder around us, hope continues to exist. Roger Scruton, who dedicated his life to the study of beauty, argued that beauty is a real and universal value, not for aesthetic reasons alone, but because it plays an indispensable role in shaping both the human world and one’s personal integrity and virtues.

If we turn to the ancients, thinkers such as Plato and Plotinus placed beauty alongside truth and goodness as something whose value required no justification. Beauty was pursued for its own sake. Within Christian theology, beauty also carried a spiritual dimension, being inseparable from God himself. To protect beauty was to protect God’s world, while a world stripped of beauty was seen as one given over to evil and disorder. If one looks upon the world and sees only ugliness, fear, and anger, then it is not the world itself that is corrupted, but the inner state of the observer. As creation, the world is fundamentally good, and therefore beautiful, and what we perceive often reflects what we carry within.

No human being can live without beauty, because beauty calls us beyond ourselves. It opens us to otherness, whether through mountains and lakes, encounters with animals, or standing before a Cézanne painting. Openness to beauty guards against narrowness, resentment, and the hardening of the soul. To fall in love with beauty, Scruton concludes, is ultimately to fall in love with God.

So when did beauty stop being a necessary virtue?

Beauty began to lose its status as a necessity when rational thinking, economic measures, and narrow definitions of progress stopped recognizing it as a marker of human flourishing. The Enlightenment, despite being the age of reason, still engaged seriously with beauty. Thinkers such as Hume, Kant, and Voltaire wrote extensively on it, introducing concepts such as the sublime and attempting to articulate shared standards of taste. Yet this very effort to rationalize what had once been accepted intuitively may have marked the beginning of beauty’s decline. What had previously been connected to divinity and therefore unquestioned now required explanation and defense.

In the centuries that followed, industrialization further displaced beauty as factories replaced natural landscapes and efficiency overtook form. John Maynard Keynes, who founded the Arts Council, may have been among the last major thinkers to place cultural progress and the promotion of beauty at the center of human improvement. As industrial and economic growth accelerated, beauty became an increasingly secondary concern.

Today, beauty is neither championed nor treated as a fundamental necessity. It rarely appears in political discourse, policy making, or planning guidance. Architecture prioritizes function over form, while discussions of development rely on terms such as quality or efficiency rather than beauty itself. Investment flows more readily toward measurable goals such as sustainability, inclusion, and economic growth, while the arts, heritage preservation, and the natural environment receive comparatively little attention. Beauty is dismissed as subjective, elitist, or frivolous, despite the fact that truth and goodness remain respected public virtues.

Politicians often avoid the language of beauty altogether, fearing associations with elitism or cultural privilege. Yet when people are asked directly, they consistently express that beauty matters to them, not only in personal appearance or possessions, but in art, music, architecture, and shared public spaces. Beauty is rarely associated with snobbery or excess, and instead is closely linked to moral character and personal dignity.

While beauty will always involve subjective judgement, it is not without shared standards. Most people agree that some buildings, artworks, and places are more beautiful than others. Disagreements arise not from the existence of beauty, but from how to protect, restore, and prioritize it. A truly enlightened society is not one that avoids such disagreements, but one that is capable of addressing them thoughtfully.

Beauty does not need to be expensive, nor does it require unanimous agreement. It requires attention, care, and conversation. To speak about beauty is already to acknowledge its value. And so, perhaps the real loss is not beauty itself, but our willingness to name it as essential.

David Hume concludes that something is beautiful because we feel it to be so. The problem is not that such feelings exist, but that we no longer take them seriously. Yet these feelings remain a fundamental part of human existence and of any meaningful notion of progress.

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