Opus 2026-305: The Beauty Facade

You are familiar with the cliches, “Beauty is only skin deep;” “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder;” “Beauty is as beauty does.”  They all apply.  I would add “Beauty has a time clock;” and maybe “True beauty can overcome superficial ugly;” “Beauty is a first impression that can go bad.”

I was watching some click bait of Anton Daniels.  You may have seen the video he was commenting on.  It has a young woman strutting across the stage at graduation, doing the “splits” and wiggling her butt at the audience and walking off, only to be denied her diploma.  In the wide variety of displays that you would see at graduations today I don’t see what the big issue was.  Respect and dignity are words that the younger generation does not understand and the adults in their lives don’t seem to have tried to teach them.

What really caused me to think was Daniels describing the young lady as attractive.  I am not here to argue with his observation.  I am here to ask what makes someone attractive?  In her case you could look at her regular features, well done make-up and flowing hair.  Those painted an attractive picture that was only flawed by her whining attitude.  The major aspect of beauty though, was her youth.  Often when I see a young attractive woman I try to imagine what they will look like at 50.  The results of my imagination are not pleasant.

I remember falling in love in 7th grade.  It was like that song, “Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer.”  One glance was all it took.  I was in love until I graduated from high school.  I thought she was awesome.  I never spoke to her.  She did not know I existed.  That had nothing to do with my star-struck status.  What I find really amusing was looking at my yearbook years later and wondering what it was I thought was so attractive.

Probably the most accurate of my opening cliches was, “Beauty has a time clock.”  There are two initial points to that.  First, we see a vision of loveliness and are struck speechless.  We are in awe at the initial picture, but the clock keeps ticking.  She may smile and show teeth that ruin the picture.  We may get close enough to see the heavy make-up.  Tattoos may make an appearance.  There are many ways in which time can downgrade the image.

The second point is the beauty of youth.  The young woman mentioned above had youth going for her.  There is something about the freshness of that time in life that is very attractive.  Sometimes it develops and delivers on its promise.  Too often it quickly fades.  I remember one 7th grade girl in my class who was truly beautiful.  It was a nature thing and obvious to anyone who saw her.  Her family moved and she went to another school.  About a year later she came back to visit and the transformation was jaw dropping.  She had gained some serious poundage.  Her complexion had gone the way of a teenager who eats too much chocolate.  The clock had done its job.

We also have cultural norms of beauty.  I remember seeing some paintings done by local Africans after they met Europeans for the first time.  The differences were exaggerated to the point where even I thought we were ugly.  Of greatest note were the long, straight noses on the faces.  It clashed with local standards.  We see this today in women getting silicone butt implants and shaving hairlines.  I remember talking to a Latina teacher that I got on well with and asked her if Latino men liked their women pleasantly plump.  It did not take her long to agree.

Ultimately the best type of beauty is that which comes from within.  I think we all know people who would never win a beauty pageant based on photographs but who radiate so much charm, warmth and general charisma that we never think about the shape of their nose.  We also know people who check all the physical boxes but we would not want to be on the same bus with them, let alone a desert island.  

Don’t get me wrong.  I plan on continuing to comb what hair I have left and wearing clean clothes.  More important I will try to develop my courtesy and kindness.  That is the real challenge.

Was that an “Amen” I heard?

homo unius libri