Taking A Good Look At Beauty

Just want to share something I recently discussed on my Facebook Page...

I feel like people today are confused in the area of beauty and substance. In our modern days, it seems like people either have a disdain for physical beauty so that they may "go on the path of enlightenment" or they have such an adoration for physical beauty that they believe any enlightenment of the soul would contradict that. Its funny, and it is a modern-day dilemma. Perhaps the minds of people cannot marry the two together? But beauty is the ultimate form of the wholeness and highness of every philosophy. Plato himself said, the only good in pondering is to be able to see beauty when it is there. Yes, this pertains to inner beauty also, but there is nothing wrong with outer beauty, and in fact outer beauty is highly prized by the gods, the angels, and man; if one is to study the ancient ways, one will see that the creation of every single beautiful statue that we so admire today, is because of the adoration of physical beauty! If not for that, David wouldn't be so beautiful as depicted by Michelangelo. Oh, all of the statues would be ugly! All of the paintings would be unsightly! As a matter of fact though, the great driving force of Michelangelo and those like him, was the beauty of the human body. Enter modern day times and people have become so incapable of encompassing anything more than one train of thought! If you are a truly enlightened individual, there is no need to make dull your outer shell in order to allow your inner light to shine! Beauty is a beautiful thing, there is nothing wrong with seeing it in the eyes and appreciating it with the mind and the heart. Let us expand our expectations. Beauty is given more to some and less to others, just as the light of the soul is brighter in some and dim in others, there is no fault in seeing these differences.

“...for the object of education is to teach us to love beauty.” (Plato)

I received a comment from David Shand in Scotland, he said: "Inner beauty shines brightly on the outside and overrides what is on the outside. When someone is beautiful both on the inside and the outside it is such a bonus. Some of the most beautiful of little birds look so plain on the outside but stun you into silence when you hear the beauty of their song. It is amzing those talented individuals of the human race who extend beautiful creations inside of them in to the world for others to admire and adore through the ages."

To which I replied: "I like your example of the birds! Makes me think of the Nightingale! A plain bird with a beautiful song! But then there are also the beautiful birds that also have equally beautiful songs. Perhaps it is the "stunning" part that gets to people so much (when they don't expect something to sing so beautifully, they become so delighted when it does, as opposed to seeing the beautiful bird and then expecting to hear a beautiful song.) This all reminds me of a piece which I once wrote, entitled "The Error of Mortal Men" ; wherein I discuss that mortals delight in their own discovery of something whether it be a shadow in a perfect diamond, or a faint beautiful reflection in an extremely dull mirror! This is why, people delight in finding a flaw in the beautiful one, and delight in finding something beautiful in the ugly one. People always complain why they don't get what they want, but the truth is, people do not want what they think they want!"

"What if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine, ... the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God, himself immortal; ... would that be a life to disregard?" (Plato)

I wanted to share this discussion here, while taking it even further. I wanted to point out, that beauty amongst people is not a very prevalent thing. And I am talking about true physical beauty, not just whatever or whoever is walking down that catwalk. There is true physical beauty in the world, its just not a prevalent thing. It's rare like diamonds, and it is desired like diamonds. Truth is, everyone would choose to be beautiful if they had the chance to choose that, nobody would say "No thanks, I'll pass." But in the world today there seems to be such a huge amount of justification of ugliness, that it feels unreal already. The idea that every unsightly person has a beautiful soul, is erroneous! It's a misleading concept, and just because you grab onto every unsightly person you see who has a beautiful personality, that does not represent everyone. There are beautiful people on the outside who possess amazing character and beautiful souls, then there are those who are beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside, just like there are those who are ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside; but then there are those who are not physically beautiful, and they're really not great people, either! There are lots of spiteful, unforgiving, bitter, hateful ugly people! Are you kidding me?

“And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.” (Plato; The Symposium)

I wonder if this mindset in question is a product of Hollywood. Just as the romantic poor man is a product of Hollywood; the romantic idea that every poor man is a wonderful man and every rich man is a douchebag! I can attest to the fact that there are rich douchebags, but then you will find no such pride in the world as the pride of the poor man! It's not the rich man who's proud, it's the poor man who's proud and stubborn! Because it's the only thing he's got! His pride! Apparently there is that attempt to romanticize the unromantic and to beautify or rectify the undesirable! Why is this the case? Shouldn't we see things for what they are? Certainly there are rich douchebags, but then there are poor douchebags, as well!

People read the things that I write, and imagine in their minds that I am a lowly, unattractive person. I know this because they actually message me and tell me that they're shocked that I didn't meet their "expectations." This obviously means that people have an ingrained belief that wisdom, substance, enlightenment, love, peace, freedom, etc., cannot be embodied by anyone who is not plain and lowly. Why is this? This is not what the ancients thought like! Has humanity really come so far from her ancient fathers? Really that far? When people look at my face, they cannot reconcile my writings to my outer appearance? Why does humanity have such a low opinion of beauty? This is an insult to Venus, to Aphrodite! To Athena and Selene!

“What shall we say about those spectators, then, who can see a plurality of beautiful things, but not beauty itself, and who are incapable of following if someone else tries to lead them to it, and who can see many moral actions, but not morality itself, and so on? That they only ever entertain beliefs, and do not know any of the things they believe?” (Plato; The Republic)

I will leave you with some videos of beautiful birds with beautiful songs! Hope you enjoy!