Sunday, August 17, 2003
PART 1
The relevance of beauty
It’s been a while since I have sat down to write. This issue however has been something of a personal struggle to myself.
Are you an attractive person? Do you consider yourself attractive? Is it a natural beauty or with the use of many aids? How is your ego with regard to your physical appearance? How much do others feed or attack it and how much to you respond to that? How important are looks to you? How important were they? Has your appearance changed drastically during your life allowing you to view life through the eyes of someone attractive and someone not so? How do you treat others? Do you accord others respect or as desirable because of their physical appearance? Do you think beauty is relevant? “Relevant to what?” Relevant to your opinion of self worth and the opinion of others. Self worth thus by determining treatment.
First off: beauty is relevant. It is relevant to you and I. It does affect the way we treat people. Whether this is due to an inherent way of placing judgment or being naturally attracted instinctively to certain shapes and forms, features or because of the forceful pressures exerted upon us by our society and culture or the outside spirit forces exerted upon society: we treat people based upon appearance. Some people struggle with conscience-I have been told my conscience is way too sensitive (so I’ve been working on demoralizing myself-JK) when it comes to love and appearance. When we are in love or have intense passionate feelings for another we put ourselves through self-scrutiny: Is it true love? Do I love the person because of the way he/she looks? How much of the relationship is based on looks. If they were ugly would I feel this impassioned about them? Probably not. Maybe you would. Maybe it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I feel strong about them and I don’t really care about motives and intentions.
Here are a few things to consider: Think about the people you love. Friends and family. Do you love them solely based upon appearance? You probably don’t give appearance any thought. You have known them so long and you accept them. But think about how the relationship began if they weren’t always in your life since birth. What was your initial impression? How did you respond to their appearance since that is the first thing you are presented with? Did those initial feelings change or were they built upon? How much did interaction with that person change the initial set of feelings? Therefore how much are appearances responsible for our feelings of that person?
When you get to know and love a person you get comfortable and familiar with their physical appearance and you respond to it with recognition as you to do the sound of their voice and familiar behavior patterns and expressions. The appearance therefore BECOMES that person or in a sense is that person as that appearance has always been associated with them from birth. Their nose, their smile, their posture and their familiar attempt to disguise it, their persona. (An idea more deeply explored in the Nicholas Cage film ‘Face Off’) If someone you have loved all your life suddenly had the physical appearance of the opposite gender how would you feel towards them now?
Beauty is relevant.
Much of the way we treat and feel and express has to do with the way society dictates and allows us to treat, feel and express. Society makes us love and praise people and objects we would naturally hate if placed in a less hostile and threatening environment. Society throws away people: the elderly, the overweight, underweight, culturally diverse, out of place features: unless the moment is demanding their presence. Look at soap operas. Society has an ideal and this ideal is usually created and fed by entertainers and those in the spotlight. Sitcoms present families in a material environment and mentality and persona that we are supposed to strive for in order for our family to get the applause. The masses feed and breathe life into those maintaining and setting this ideal while the rest is left to die or be outright killed. Pressure is exerted upon our children by peers to dress and maintain a correct body weight and clear skin. Parents want their children to have life and acceptance. They want acceptance too.
The secret of not being noticed. When we dress and act within a certain boundary we become accepted and therefore not noticed and therefore allowing others to act normal and express themselves normally around us. I.e. A group of friends going out to see a movie. “Look at what she is wearing! My god.” Someone got noticed. Uh Oh. “I love what you did to your hair.” Ok, someone was daring and risking but stayed within the accepted boundaries even if that meant crossing the boundaries because sometimes the boundaries are: risk taking and boundary crossing because ordinary and acceptance is just unacceptable.
When we get into a group, things get complicated. One on one you can act in much more expressive ways without judgment-that depending upon who you are with. But when you add more people to the occasion then there is an outside force exerted. New standards and fear imposed and voiced. Your best friend starts betraying you in public. There is something new to conform to and a new entity to appease. The entity being the environment you are in and what has normally been accepted there and might be in the future. Context giving or not giving permission. But the context keeps changing too.
I want to go back to analyzing motives as introduced in the beginning. This is kinda fun: think about deep relationships or important relationships you have with individuals you have never seen a picture of or met in person. The Internet has created this scenario much more frequently nowadays. (That is where most of the suspense regarding Internet chat lines is created because you do not know how the other person will react to an already established relationship over time) But this type is popular with the telephone and letter writing. One instance with myself had to do with my place of employment. I began work with a nurse agency over 6 years ago but was never introduced to the staff of coordinators. All my job assignments were given over the phone and you learn the power of voice so quickly when so much is riding on it. You learn to read into everything. Just the way they say ’hello’. I adopted a personal theory from contemplation: you cannot have a conversation with someone you can't see and not be imagining subconsciously at the same time what they look like. You HAVE to try to create an image even if you don’t realize you are doing it. And the only thing you can draw upon are associations. Associations from people in your past that you have visually seen in person or on TV that may have a similar voice. Have you ever told yourself “that person sounds black” or “that person sounds fat” or “old” or “attractive”? Hands are reaching out and grasping at identity. We are desperately trying to attribute a body and a person. You cannot have a conversation with someone who becomes your friend and never ask the inevitable question: what do you look like? Because appearance is relevant. To the way we treat and view that person.
I WILL CONTINUE WITH PART 2 AT A LATER TIME
The relevance of beauty Part II
I should clarify my title definition. I was thinking of renaming it to ‘the relevance of beauty and appearance’ because what I refer to has to do with images and façades we create that society reacts to in many times predetermined ways. These ‘appearances’ have varying degrees of beauty that are sometimes tantamount to just plain ugliness. It may have given the impression by my initial title that all I am referring to is the physical beauty of a physical human body and therefore would have become confusing as I expanded on my discussion. By the way please feel free to add your thoughts and opinions in an email.
So I was going on about how it was over 6 years working with this company taking various job assignments from different coordinators and never getting to actually meet them. Relationships had been built up and established but I never felt on the level to ask, “What do you look like?” without sounding rude or inconvenient. Finally a situation arose where I had to meet in person. It was nerve-wracking I tell you though she (my main coordinator) never showed it. I knew she was nervous as this was going to change our relationship. Some may say, “tell me what you look like and I promise it wont make a difference.” But it does. Both individuals have to absorb the meeting encounter and reassess the relationship and feelings and then they have to meet in the future to feel out how the other person has changed and adjusted to what just took place. It is stressful. So did my coordinator look like how I pictured her? My hazy vision of her had changed over the years but my final pre-visit vision was pretty close although still a surprise and adjustment. The initial visual contact with her across the room as she came through this door and called out my name “Jamie?” her familiar voice almost frightening seizing me an undeniable truth beckoning me to which I courageously obeyed stepping closer and speaking in return “hi Anne” with inner hesitancy trying to mask the relevance of the moment too. I don’t think the encounter affected our relationship too greatly. It was a business relationship and there was and is mutual respect. But a big step had been accomplished. Something needful out of the way. A resolution as it were. We could put the past behind us and step forward knowing that a possible obstacle to our friendship and way of interacting had been done away with. We could both breathe a little easier.
I’m trying not to linger too much on myself here, but I wanted to comment on my art that I have shared with some people. Most of my subject is women and attractive women at that. That is what appeals to my eye. Physically attractive women is what aspires me. I admit that. I think a lot of other male humans feel that way too. Attractive men aspire me too. I have an appreciation for attractive people as do a lot but most may not have so great an appreciation as just the normal inclination and natural attraction to the opposite sex. Painting attractive women has taught me a few things. I’m not saying these are right, I’m just saying this is what I have adopted through my limited years of life and experience:
1: Physical beauty is just a mask. Because I believe the universe and we are “one”, everything else (besides a beautiful woman or man that is) in the universe is the embodiment of that woman. That is the father, brother, landscape, time, your job, other relationships, God, morality, matter-everything existing is that representation: the human female form responding emotively. In fact you yourself are that being. With faith and believing and sacrifice you claim the woman or woman you love or desire whether it is the actual person you love or someone else acting for them emotively. Further on being a “mask” because the person is outwardly attractive, it in no way makes them inwardly desirable, in fact because of our image ego feeding society generally their inner character is just plain ugly and repulsive.
2: We need attractive people in our lives to be complete. Because we are one with the universe we can’t limit ourselves to categories of individuals: rich, poor, attractive, young, old, ethnic diversity, fat or thin, religiously. In order to function as a normal person we need healthy relationships with everyone and to be treated with proper esteem from all spectrums of the human race. Again society is responsible for being divisive and causing individuals to restrict their love.
3: Similar to my first point: Beauty is in everything around us except the actual object of beauty. To attain the object of beauty you have to sacrifice everything and learn to appreciate the universe around you and see that the truth of that individual’s beauty is spoken of in the world around you. That’s what makes the rest of the world so beautiful. To appreciate a moment. To appreciate a flower. To appreciate what sacrifice means. To know and appreciate touch and sensitivity and emotions and what true character is. To appreciate time and space and distance and power. To know faith and destiny. To know what true love is. To appreciate and place value on individuals and other blessings granted from God. To know and become one with God. To know truth.
Beauty is just a face. You need to be loved by physically attractive people and you need to love physically unattractive people. That is what will save society. Loving people for who they are. That is what will give us true security and happiness. That is what will break down what we have been programmed to react to when we are amongst others in public or in a group. Fear of unacceptance and upsetting verbal remarks and looks will dissipate. Why not create a façade that beneath lies genuinely caring and stick that up on a pedestal? Wouldn’t that be something worth giving life to and feeding?
I think God has all taught us all through experience not to judge someone based on appearance. What we need to work on individually is courage and to fight the outside spirit forces and pressures exerted upon to control crowds to praise outward image. We cannot let society dictate who we fall in love with or who is desirable or who is worthy of respect or consideration. We live in a world that has no sense of what real beauty is. True beauty is not empty and ugly underneath. What is more beautiful than the cruxifixion of God’s Son? - A beauty based on character-not appearances. True beauty can have both an outward attractiveness and inwardness. Maybe in this life we have not been blessed with an outward beauty. What if in the next life God changes things around. How will people start treating each other then? Maybe we should start attributing respect now.
The relevance of beauty
It’s been a while since I have sat down to write. This issue however has been something of a personal struggle to myself.
Are you an attractive person? Do you consider yourself attractive? Is it a natural beauty or with the use of many aids? How is your ego with regard to your physical appearance? How much do others feed or attack it and how much to you respond to that? How important are looks to you? How important were they? Has your appearance changed drastically during your life allowing you to view life through the eyes of someone attractive and someone not so? How do you treat others? Do you accord others respect or as desirable because of their physical appearance? Do you think beauty is relevant? “Relevant to what?” Relevant to your opinion of self worth and the opinion of others. Self worth thus by determining treatment.
First off: beauty is relevant. It is relevant to you and I. It does affect the way we treat people. Whether this is due to an inherent way of placing judgment or being naturally attracted instinctively to certain shapes and forms, features or because of the forceful pressures exerted upon us by our society and culture or the outside spirit forces exerted upon society: we treat people based upon appearance. Some people struggle with conscience-I have been told my conscience is way too sensitive (so I’ve been working on demoralizing myself-JK) when it comes to love and appearance. When we are in love or have intense passionate feelings for another we put ourselves through self-scrutiny: Is it true love? Do I love the person because of the way he/she looks? How much of the relationship is based on looks. If they were ugly would I feel this impassioned about them? Probably not. Maybe you would. Maybe it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I feel strong about them and I don’t really care about motives and intentions.
Here are a few things to consider: Think about the people you love. Friends and family. Do you love them solely based upon appearance? You probably don’t give appearance any thought. You have known them so long and you accept them. But think about how the relationship began if they weren’t always in your life since birth. What was your initial impression? How did you respond to their appearance since that is the first thing you are presented with? Did those initial feelings change or were they built upon? How much did interaction with that person change the initial set of feelings? Therefore how much are appearances responsible for our feelings of that person?
When you get to know and love a person you get comfortable and familiar with their physical appearance and you respond to it with recognition as you to do the sound of their voice and familiar behavior patterns and expressions. The appearance therefore BECOMES that person or in a sense is that person as that appearance has always been associated with them from birth. Their nose, their smile, their posture and their familiar attempt to disguise it, their persona. (An idea more deeply explored in the Nicholas Cage film ‘Face Off’) If someone you have loved all your life suddenly had the physical appearance of the opposite gender how would you feel towards them now?
Beauty is relevant.
Much of the way we treat and feel and express has to do with the way society dictates and allows us to treat, feel and express. Society makes us love and praise people and objects we would naturally hate if placed in a less hostile and threatening environment. Society throws away people: the elderly, the overweight, underweight, culturally diverse, out of place features: unless the moment is demanding their presence. Look at soap operas. Society has an ideal and this ideal is usually created and fed by entertainers and those in the spotlight. Sitcoms present families in a material environment and mentality and persona that we are supposed to strive for in order for our family to get the applause. The masses feed and breathe life into those maintaining and setting this ideal while the rest is left to die or be outright killed. Pressure is exerted upon our children by peers to dress and maintain a correct body weight and clear skin. Parents want their children to have life and acceptance. They want acceptance too.
The secret of not being noticed. When we dress and act within a certain boundary we become accepted and therefore not noticed and therefore allowing others to act normal and express themselves normally around us. I.e. A group of friends going out to see a movie. “Look at what she is wearing! My god.” Someone got noticed. Uh Oh. “I love what you did to your hair.” Ok, someone was daring and risking but stayed within the accepted boundaries even if that meant crossing the boundaries because sometimes the boundaries are: risk taking and boundary crossing because ordinary and acceptance is just unacceptable.
When we get into a group, things get complicated. One on one you can act in much more expressive ways without judgment-that depending upon who you are with. But when you add more people to the occasion then there is an outside force exerted. New standards and fear imposed and voiced. Your best friend starts betraying you in public. There is something new to conform to and a new entity to appease. The entity being the environment you are in and what has normally been accepted there and might be in the future. Context giving or not giving permission. But the context keeps changing too.
I want to go back to analyzing motives as introduced in the beginning. This is kinda fun: think about deep relationships or important relationships you have with individuals you have never seen a picture of or met in person. The Internet has created this scenario much more frequently nowadays. (That is where most of the suspense regarding Internet chat lines is created because you do not know how the other person will react to an already established relationship over time) But this type is popular with the telephone and letter writing. One instance with myself had to do with my place of employment. I began work with a nurse agency over 6 years ago but was never introduced to the staff of coordinators. All my job assignments were given over the phone and you learn the power of voice so quickly when so much is riding on it. You learn to read into everything. Just the way they say ’hello’. I adopted a personal theory from contemplation: you cannot have a conversation with someone you can't see and not be imagining subconsciously at the same time what they look like. You HAVE to try to create an image even if you don’t realize you are doing it. And the only thing you can draw upon are associations. Associations from people in your past that you have visually seen in person or on TV that may have a similar voice. Have you ever told yourself “that person sounds black” or “that person sounds fat” or “old” or “attractive”? Hands are reaching out and grasping at identity. We are desperately trying to attribute a body and a person. You cannot have a conversation with someone who becomes your friend and never ask the inevitable question: what do you look like? Because appearance is relevant. To the way we treat and view that person.
I WILL CONTINUE WITH PART 2 AT A LATER TIME
The relevance of beauty Part II
I should clarify my title definition. I was thinking of renaming it to ‘the relevance of beauty and appearance’ because what I refer to has to do with images and façades we create that society reacts to in many times predetermined ways. These ‘appearances’ have varying degrees of beauty that are sometimes tantamount to just plain ugliness. It may have given the impression by my initial title that all I am referring to is the physical beauty of a physical human body and therefore would have become confusing as I expanded on my discussion. By the way please feel free to add your thoughts and opinions in an email.
So I was going on about how it was over 6 years working with this company taking various job assignments from different coordinators and never getting to actually meet them. Relationships had been built up and established but I never felt on the level to ask, “What do you look like?” without sounding rude or inconvenient. Finally a situation arose where I had to meet in person. It was nerve-wracking I tell you though she (my main coordinator) never showed it. I knew she was nervous as this was going to change our relationship. Some may say, “tell me what you look like and I promise it wont make a difference.” But it does. Both individuals have to absorb the meeting encounter and reassess the relationship and feelings and then they have to meet in the future to feel out how the other person has changed and adjusted to what just took place. It is stressful. So did my coordinator look like how I pictured her? My hazy vision of her had changed over the years but my final pre-visit vision was pretty close although still a surprise and adjustment. The initial visual contact with her across the room as she came through this door and called out my name “Jamie?” her familiar voice almost frightening seizing me an undeniable truth beckoning me to which I courageously obeyed stepping closer and speaking in return “hi Anne” with inner hesitancy trying to mask the relevance of the moment too. I don’t think the encounter affected our relationship too greatly. It was a business relationship and there was and is mutual respect. But a big step had been accomplished. Something needful out of the way. A resolution as it were. We could put the past behind us and step forward knowing that a possible obstacle to our friendship and way of interacting had been done away with. We could both breathe a little easier.
I’m trying not to linger too much on myself here, but I wanted to comment on my art that I have shared with some people. Most of my subject is women and attractive women at that. That is what appeals to my eye. Physically attractive women is what aspires me. I admit that. I think a lot of other male humans feel that way too. Attractive men aspire me too. I have an appreciation for attractive people as do a lot but most may not have so great an appreciation as just the normal inclination and natural attraction to the opposite sex. Painting attractive women has taught me a few things. I’m not saying these are right, I’m just saying this is what I have adopted through my limited years of life and experience:
1: Physical beauty is just a mask. Because I believe the universe and we are “one”, everything else (besides a beautiful woman or man that is) in the universe is the embodiment of that woman. That is the father, brother, landscape, time, your job, other relationships, God, morality, matter-everything existing is that representation: the human female form responding emotively. In fact you yourself are that being. With faith and believing and sacrifice you claim the woman or woman you love or desire whether it is the actual person you love or someone else acting for them emotively. Further on being a “mask” because the person is outwardly attractive, it in no way makes them inwardly desirable, in fact because of our image ego feeding society generally their inner character is just plain ugly and repulsive.
2: We need attractive people in our lives to be complete. Because we are one with the universe we can’t limit ourselves to categories of individuals: rich, poor, attractive, young, old, ethnic diversity, fat or thin, religiously. In order to function as a normal person we need healthy relationships with everyone and to be treated with proper esteem from all spectrums of the human race. Again society is responsible for being divisive and causing individuals to restrict their love.
3: Similar to my first point: Beauty is in everything around us except the actual object of beauty. To attain the object of beauty you have to sacrifice everything and learn to appreciate the universe around you and see that the truth of that individual’s beauty is spoken of in the world around you. That’s what makes the rest of the world so beautiful. To appreciate a moment. To appreciate a flower. To appreciate what sacrifice means. To know and appreciate touch and sensitivity and emotions and what true character is. To appreciate time and space and distance and power. To know faith and destiny. To know what true love is. To appreciate and place value on individuals and other blessings granted from God. To know and become one with God. To know truth.
Beauty is just a face. You need to be loved by physically attractive people and you need to love physically unattractive people. That is what will save society. Loving people for who they are. That is what will give us true security and happiness. That is what will break down what we have been programmed to react to when we are amongst others in public or in a group. Fear of unacceptance and upsetting verbal remarks and looks will dissipate. Why not create a façade that beneath lies genuinely caring and stick that up on a pedestal? Wouldn’t that be something worth giving life to and feeding?
I think God has all taught us all through experience not to judge someone based on appearance. What we need to work on individually is courage and to fight the outside spirit forces and pressures exerted upon to control crowds to praise outward image. We cannot let society dictate who we fall in love with or who is desirable or who is worthy of respect or consideration. We live in a world that has no sense of what real beauty is. True beauty is not empty and ugly underneath. What is more beautiful than the cruxifixion of God’s Son? - A beauty based on character-not appearances. True beauty can have both an outward attractiveness and inwardness. Maybe in this life we have not been blessed with an outward beauty. What if in the next life God changes things around. How will people start treating each other then? Maybe we should start attributing respect now.
