My friend Alice is battling away to make her blog look nicer. Good luck to her. And I feel that this is a quite profound comment on how a lot of us feel about the role of aesthetics in everyday life:

Yes, this is drivel. As soon as I get my new look, everything will change.

She's talking about the blog, not herself. But something very similar could be said about the relationship between how well you you talk and how good you look. (Improve your speaking by getting a new suit.)

Things are a shambles. But as soon as we can make them look nice, they will be on the mend. Start with appearances, and reality will follow. There is much truth in this.

In armies, a classic way (see the movie Patton starring George C. Scott) of turning loser soldiers into Real Soldiers is to start by making them look like Real Soldiers. Start with the appearance of things. Next thing you know, they'll feel like Real Soldiers, and before you know it they'll be Real Soldiers, and fighting like Real Soldiers.

Many – including me, here, I'm sure, often – speak of beauty and good-lookingness as being entirely separate from everyday Real Life and its struggles. Not so.