April 25, 2005

Today I became so mad at everyone’s view of beautiful. It can be seen on television shows, magazines, websites, and anything else our lives might touch. And after daily observation, I came to this upsetting conclusion: Everyone is completely wrong and ignorant.

But then again, perhaps I’m merely in denial. Perhaps I am attacking the accepted truth to distract from the fact that I am a far cry from magazine beauty. However, I have yet to actually meet someone who met our high standards. So I still ask, why do we try to become someone we are not? Why do we have this mangled view of beauty?

“Completely wrong and mangled”? Once again, who am I to go against such a modern and common view with such sharp criticism? Perhaps I am too harsh. Or perhaps I’m still in denial. So my sights are set lower. Perhaps our view is simply… unsorted. We absorb all this information on beauty and how to get it and how much it will cost, and yet we haven’t gotten around to truly sorting it all out. Thus the question now becomes… has anyone ever seriously thought about what truly is beautiful? And then I wondered if I had.

So I began writing down what I thought was beautiful in humanity. I wrote a long list of things “a well lived life”, “quietly changing the world”. All were true, poetic, but generally random. I did not need examples; I needed the epitome of beauty, a killer sentence of mass impact. Because the common person will not read an essay on beauty… that is, unless it includes a bulleted list of “fantastic summer-glow tips”. I must narrow it down. There must be some sort of common thread. There must be some deciding factor in my brain that figures out such a quality as beauty.

And as I continued my rambling I suddenly stumbled upon what I was truly thinking. “Perhaps it is in the celebration of who one is.”

Yes, perhaps it is. As I look over my examples of beauty each one now falls in place.

“a genuine and joyful smile”

“confidence to take on the world”

“curious eyes full of expression and anticipation for what is next”

All of it.

And now I am more at peace because of it. So perhaps that is just what the world needs: for each to sort out one’s own thoughts. And finally come to one’s own conclusions on beauty -- conclusions that will lead to qualities that one can actively seek in this “mangled” world.