What are we here for if not to leave this world a little more beautiful than it was before?
But when I say beautiful I don’t mean simply in the aesthetic sense… Sure it’s nice to have pretty things to look at, but I think the current media and marketing enterprises this consumeristic society impulses already do a very good job at bombarding us with eye pleasing cosmetic ideals…

I’m talking about a transcendental type of Beauty, one which can withstand the evolving concepts and changing fashions of cultures throughout the centuries, one which is available to anyone, male or female, young or old, rich or poor. Not a fleeting, flimsy ideal, but a sturdy kind of beauty we can all perceive and embody…

Oh! to be beautiful… A lot has been said about beauty. A quality that’s always been held in high-esteem and is especially embraced and dare I say, possibly distorted and taken advantage of in our current capitalistic western society of the rich, famous and seemingly beautiful….
In this materialistic world that seems to be increasingly concerned with achieving ideals of lavish majesty and grandeur through our surroundings and encouraging the spending of our efforts and resources into manipulating our facades to comply with the ever changing epitomes of physical attractiveness, in this superficially deceiving world where nothing is what it is seems anymore, just what is beauty? And is it even worth admiring and/or pursuing?

But isn’t the concept of beauty ambiguous and dynamic, subject to a society’s forever changing standards of what is considered attractive?

Although trying to define beauty just like any other virtue or moral concept can be met with skepticism, an even though many will try and argue the subjectivity of primordial principles such as good and evil, I believe that really, the truth is that when we lie in bed alone at night and put our hands in our hearts and consciously examine our intentions and values, we instinctively know and can intuitively differentiate on a very basic level between “the bad” that which causes harm and anguish or brings about destruction and “the good” that benign act and positive contribution which is for the betterment or wellbeing of self or another…

In the same manner, I believe that when it comes to “beauty” or standards of physical attractiveness, there are certain very well founded characteristics we can all agree make up what’s become known as “classic timeless beauty”; harmonious proportion, symmetrical, youthful and healthy looking features, “the golden ratio”, will always withstand the test of time. Certain visual qualities will always be appealing now and a hundred years back and into the future, here and in China or in the most remote village on earth as long as we remain human…
Therefore perhaps it’s not a vain or futile enterprise to examine and question our concept of beauty beyond that narcissistic, masticated ideal mass media tries to sell us…

A quick google search grants us with the common widely held definition of beauty which is “that which is pleasing to the senses”, thus from this definition alone it’s inevitable to arrive at the evident conclusion that to be beautiful or cultivate beauty one has to be more than just visually agreeable… For can we not perceive stimuli with more than just our eyes? Yet why is our culture so pedantically obsessed with simply prunning our looks? Isn’t it a wonder how beauty would be perceived by our other senses? Would we be destitute and oblivious to the presence of beauty is we were visually impaired? I believe that to prevent this situation, thankfully we have been all been blessed with a vital and reliable receptor, one which can not be deceived and we can always count on to recognise real beauty all around us… Our hearts.

Retracing the origins of our notion of the word beauty, perhaps it’s not unintended that in its etymology, “beauty” apart from physical attractiveness its also identified with “goodness and courtesy”. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that in Classical Greek the word “καλός” for beautiful can also be translated as “good, right, noble, moral, virtuous”.
Perhaps Plato’s ancient intuition was right when he theorised in the Symposium that beauty was a form of gateway or first stepping stone towards ascending into higher moral virtues…
So perhaps it’s time we stop neglecting or misusing the concept of beauty in merely banal endeavours but instead focus on another more virtuous and benevolent side of the beautiful.

I find it both comforting and empowering to know that even if some of us might have any of our basic 5 senses impaired, and so be disabled to participate in some aspect of sensual beauty, we all without exception have the capacity to discern and experience real beauty to its true extent given our intrinsic capacity to nurture and delight in beautiful hearts full of kindness, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, respect, understanding, courage, wonder, joy, hope, faith; love.

I believe that although the physical concept of what is considered attractive will always be subject to alterations and even though the depictions of the ultimately beautiful tangible human form will vary to some degree; in the end the most valuable and honorable qualities integrated in a truly, timelessly beautiful person are perhaps more noble, unseen and ethereal, yet will endure the test of time and transcend subjective definitions…

So instead of spending more precious time looking in the mirror, taking and deleting “selfies”, more hard earned dollars trying to upkeep a perpetually modifiable “stylish” wardrobe or any other more efforts (from resorting plastic surgery to being more or less crippled “our problem areas”) in external pursuits of beauty, isn’t it time we started aspiring towards a more durable and resilient, pure and true kind of beauty?
The one which will still be evident even after our skin inevitably wrinkles and our bodies decay.

So instead of any more cutting, pulling and plucking out of hairs, how about pulling out the weeds of jealousy, envy and discord from our hearts?
Instead of disposing of endless hours working out our physic and trying to “bulk up” and “sculpt” our bodies how about working out our strongest and most important muscle, our sentient, compassionate hearts… How about sculpting our character? Our values, our morals? How about growing our love and kindness towards one another?

Instead of colouring our hair? How about colouring the world with more shades of joy?
Because let’s face it, at the end of the day, both the winners of the genetic lottery and us mere mortals will all perish and decompose the same way, no matter the colour or style of the fibres constituting our bodies or those covering it, wether we were a size six or sixteen, wether we donned the latest designer couture or recycled no brand…

Let’s not let beauty be an adjective reserved only to describe just a few genetically privileged individuals, let’s embrace and take appropriation of the word in all its glory and in a more worthwhile sense…
So to conclude, may I suggest that perhaps beauty is not in the eye of the beholder but in the heart of the bearer…

One which will always shine through.

So be beautiful, be you!

“She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald