Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Beauty...Curse or Gift???
As some of you may know, I am a big fan of the FX show Nip/Tuck. It is about two superficial plastic surgeons who make people look perfect but they themselves are imperfect in their lives. Last season, the show was rather dark and depressing featuring a serial rapist who tormented the surgeons and almost ruining their pracice. This bizzare criminal picked out society's most beautiful people and carved their faces in the form of a bloody smile from ear to ear. He blamed plastic surgeons for 'carving' what is real out of life and only making it superficial
His signature saying was, "Beauty is a curse on the world, it keeps us from seeing who the real monsters are."
Not just our culture, but humans in general seem to have an obsession with beauty. This most likely stems from our biology seeing as good physicial attributes help in procreation. Even the ancient Romans obsessed over beauty. It really is nothing new.
Beauty is undoubtedly a commodity. It can influence friends, jobs, partners, among other things. But a curse? Many people do spend their lives obsessing over that perfect body, soul mate, and social acceptance, much of which is related to their relative beauty. Some even commit suicide because they don't have it.
So what do you think? Curse? Gift? Or something else perhaps?
His signature saying was, "Beauty is a curse on the world, it keeps us from seeing who the real monsters are."
Not just our culture, but humans in general seem to have an obsession with beauty. This most likely stems from our biology seeing as good physicial attributes help in procreation. Even the ancient Romans obsessed over beauty. It really is nothing new.
Beauty is undoubtedly a commodity. It can influence friends, jobs, partners, among other things. But a curse? Many people do spend their lives obsessing over that perfect body, soul mate, and social acceptance, much of which is related to their relative beauty. Some even commit suicide because they don't have it.
So what do you think? Curse? Gift? Or something else perhaps?
0
Comments
Some cultures like their women rotund and ample....some like them with shaven heads or elongated necks.....others like their women with hairy armpits and nose bones....
If magazines, newspapers and the media in general are to be believed, our culture and society prefers tall, willowy excessively slim women, with big breasts and hips you could hang a coat on....
although some men I have spoken to insist they prefer a bit of flesh, rather than a 'box of spanners'....
Ultimately, I believe it comes down to self-esteem and self perception.
I am short, slightly dumpy and definitely not on the list of the 1000 world's most beautiful women.
I don't care.
I am a nice person, and I am more content with myself now, than I have ever been.
As far as I am concerned, that's beauty enough.
Anyway true enough, even as beauty is cultural, researchers seem to have claimed to know the secret of beauty, facial symmetry. The more symmetrical your face is, the more handsome/pretty you are. (Does pimple distribution count?
I guess for me I make a distinction between what is "pretty" based on outer appearances and what is "beautiful" based on inner qualities.
Perhaps looking pretty is not so much of either blessing or curse... As Confucius always advised his followers to not pick a pretty woman to be their wife, for she could have been a wife of somebody else in the past, or the wife of another in the future (and in those times, be more likely to be selected to be sacrificed to appease the gods whenever it flooded).
Of course, in modern times, having a pretty face earns you quite many privilleges... But beauty now can be "sold" literally, and trust me, even the ugliest duckling, under some motivation to care for her looks a little more, can become the most attractive swan.
Right, why the focus on women? But anyway, calling beauty a gift or a curse is almost as conclusive as calling modern technology a curse or a gift... Many factors come to play too... If you happen to be stuck with a bunch of boring me and my weird clones, having a pretty face won't get you as far as a beautiful heart. If you get stuck with Crusoe on his island, do you think he'd give Friday up to you just to oogle at you? In the future where mankind is enlightened enough to not commit any sexual offences, do you think people will worry for looking good?
Yet chances are that, if you ask around now, it is still safer to assume that most will count a pretty face as a gift. Heck, look good for all you want/can - but if you know how to manage (in terms of not crying over it when you get wrinkled in your old age - and stay out of obvious harm caused by it) and coordinate it well with your more-lasting inner beauty - go for it!
Anyway, off-topic, across all cultures, we all know that men want different types of women... But across all cultures, what is it that women want?
It's what the rest of us define as beauty.
Years ago - plumpness was a sign of beauty. In some nations it still is seen as a sign of beauty or power (that one has enough to eat to become fat means they can provide well for themselves).
Not in the US in the 21 century though! Emaciation is the flavor of the day!
-bf
I too have been guilty of watching, but that also was when I began to observe the observer. See myself and everyone watching TV, and see what a waste of energy it is.
Beauty is superficial due to DNA structures. Our hang-ups have been engineered into our system, part the domestic conditioning and part neuronal development for a millinia.
So, how to get beyond that programming. "Waking up to what you do"* is a good start.
* -also a book title
Just in---
From Tricycle's daily dharmma--
The Object Which is Now
The first step ... is to cut off the chain of associated concepts and words that flood the mind, holding it with recollection on the present, on what is. Thus in a famous verse, the Buddha used to say, "Don't chase after the past, don't seek the future; the past is gone, the future hasn't come. But see clearly on the spot, that object which is now, while finding and living in a still, unmoving state of mind."
Thought this was relevent.
Palzang
Not that I'm saying... I mean... I wasn't referring to... well.. I just better shut up now.
-bf
Palzang
-bf
Have you not seen someone that you thought was ugly on the outside but after getting to know them you thought they were truly beautiful and could not guess how it was possible to have not seen them as beautiful? Or met someone who you thought was so beautiful they knocked you off your feet but after getting to know them you no longer could see even their physical beauty because they were so ugly on the inside.
Beauty comes from within...................
Yep, you guessed it................not the prettiest girl on the block and I'm fluffy too