About Beauty

Beauty has much occupied my mind, not simply of late but for most of my life. As a child I took offense if someone told me I was pretty. It was an insult, of course. There are so many personal characteristics on which to comment. If a person searching for something to compliment settled on my appearance, weren't they congratulating me on something over which I had no control? It could only mean I had no other admirable qualities. It was inevitably a horrible moment, especially for a child who stubbornly believed appearance didn't matter. Not only did I have no other advantages, but the only thing in or about me that was good was irrelevant. So ouch. Please excuse me while I go cry.

Adolescence was more interesting and agitating. By then it was obvious not many shared my theory that looks aren't important. I altered my theory to, "Looks shouldn't matter," and spent hours agonizing alone over the ethics of wearing makeup, shaving leg hair, and plucking eyebrows. My deliberations told me they were all wrong, all unnecessary, and all hurtful. They shouldn't be expected of me or any girl. Why were these cosmetic rituals so essential to the others? Why didn't they fight against it? It was disturbing and confusing - especially when I was the only one feeling disturbed and confused about it. (For those who didn't do public high school, this was all of the time.)

An Animal Behaviour course from the Phsychology department blew it wide open. Here was explained what was attractive and why. The "prettiness" debate I'd hosted in my private council ended. The entire topic was disgusting and depraved. Worse than that, it was a betrayal of what I valued and hoped for. The existence of these behavioral mechanisms meant that humans were mindless bags of meat with no meaning in life beyond their own proliferation. Shame on me. Shame on the human race. We're supposed to be better than the animals. So ran my thoughts.

It wasn't until I stumbled into love that I reopened the internal Prettiness Seminars. You see, the feeling I had looking at him was the same I got from looking at the more spectacular sunsets, or a sharp black sky lavish with stars. There was a revelation: features which I don't consider attractive can be, at the same time, beautiful. I found that even here, despite all the hormonal and cognitive hard wiring, we aren't animals. As in everything else, we can choose. What I love is beautiful because I love it.

Little me had it right: ultimately, looks don't matter. But little me was missing the important clarification that makes it true: looks don't matter because beauty matters so much. There is an expanded sense of beauty that comprehends what is good and true as well as lovely, and without it . . . Well. We'd be like the animals.