On Beauty

Americans have no sense of beauty. At least, this is true for my time. We search faces for cookie cutter traits resembling the false gods of celebrity. We are told what beauty is and do not question the validity of such claims. Few Americans are afforded the opportunity to cultivate their own sense of beauty and style. It takes a certain initial appreciation of strange and new concepts before a person can allow their opinions to traverse the borders of well established mass produced parameters.

                

               True beauty is something that haunts you. A face that burns itself into your retinas never to be forgotten. A sound and a movement from an unguarded and genuine human being. True beauty starts with spotting a minor flaw and realizing that the person is all the more beautiful for wearing this flaw with unmasked confidence.

“This is me,” They silently say, “and I do not require your admiration”

                Americans fall instead for the insistent voice, “Me! Me! I am pretty I am pretty, look at me!”

They fall for the illusion, not the soul behind the mask. I have seen men drool over the racy red dress, having no consideration for the woman within the scarlet folds of seduction.

                They fail to see the stranger in the corner with the exquisitely chiseled bulbous nose. They refuse to notice the sublime beauty of the girl sitting at the table with the lazy eye and crooked smirk. We are all so horribly afraid to be ourselves. When do children learn to cultivate that deceptive glamour? When did it become a national crime for a woman to let her armpit hair flow in the wind?

                Personally, I have this thing for noses. America seems to have an obsession for teensy tiny nothing noses. Give me a nose with character! Give me a nose with substance. Huge honkers with knots and crooks. Wide, powerful noses with imposing bridges. Wear your nose proudly and declare, “This is MY nose, and you will learn to love it or be banished to the ninth dimension.”

                There is something sickeningly wrong with a society that completely embraces the idea of surgery for cosmetic purposes. Slice off your nose, plump up your boobs, implant pecs, implant quadruple arms and a robot antenna. Legs have become passé. Chop them off. Replace them with tentacles. Have a 5 inch diameter hole drilled straight through your head. Damn, that’s hawt.

                We have allowed other people to form our opinions for us.

                Take a moment to look at pictures of movie stars and models throughout the history of photography. Make a point to see the stars from other nations. Then, note how over time, the standards of beauty seem to converge, becoming increasingly Western.

                If this obsession with false beauty continues, I fear for the children of the next generation. The enforced social parameters of beauty will become narrower and more stringent. We will all look alike and the elegant dance of genetics will be reduced to a guttural pulse, much like dubstep.

Stop letting other people decide what is beautiful for YOU.