Understanding the concept of beauty

Today we discuss a factor that determines attraction between people. Whether we would like to admit or not, it plays a huge role in society as a whole and more specifically, it plays a huge role as to how people treat you. Today we speak about beauty and if it is indeed in the eye of the beholder or if we are lying to ourselves and that aesthetics are important in the grand scheme of things.
I hope you as a reader enjoy the article and appreciate the time taken to not just read the article but to try to see things in the shades of grey that life is¦..

Beauty can be defined as a beautiful or pleasing thing or person. A more strict definition is that beauty is a combination of qualities such as shape, color or form that is pleasing from an aesthetic sense. The nature of beauty is fascinating as it is different to everybody. What one person can find ugly, another can find beauty. But can beauty be universal? Can beauty be judged from more than just an aesthetic sense? Is there a global standard for what is considered beautiful or not? And if so, who gave the people who judge beauty the authority to choose what is beautiful and what is ugly?

Most things that are judged beautiful were decided as beautiful from an aesthetic point of view in mind. While this can be logical as aesthetics are important, it also reveals the shallow and artificial nature of people, but to be fair, we as humans are always attracted to things that are aesthetically pleasing. In my humble opinion, judging things from an aesthetic point of view is rather impractical (and I am not saying that because I am not exactly easy on the eye).
This is not to say that beauty should be undermined. On the contrary, beauty is meant to inspire, not to cause hostility. There have been many times where I have seen a beautiful piece of art or a beautiful house and immediately became motivated to gain the means to own said piece of art or house in order to prove to myself that despite how I look, I have the ability to work towards the goal of acquiring that beauty.

Beauty can reveal itself in many objects just by observation or in the case of people, through conversation. Because of this, it stands to reason that there are different forms of beauty. There is purposeless beauty within objects that is a classic case of style over substance. There is beauty within complexity as it shows the dedication and commitment required for the creator for the beauty to be noticed subliminally among other things. There is beauty in simplicity as it shows a level of understanding from the creator that doesn't need sophistication to be explained and that sometimes the simplest things make the most sense. It just boils down to a person's preference. Different strokes for different folks. This is what makes beauty so beautiful: its subjectivity.

For further proof that beauty is a subjective matter, a study done by a local brand revealed that 77% of people said that beauty can be found through a good attitude, a good spirit and other attributes that have nothing to do with physical appearance. A 2nd study showed that 89% of people believe that beauty can be found at any age and that every person on the planet has an attribute that makes them beautiful. The study also found that most people agree that physical attractiveness is about how a person's looks whereas beauty is about whom a person is and their attributes. The same study revealed that people also seem to rate happiness, confidence, and dignity and humor as the main characteristics that define beauty instead of appearance, weight and sense of style which surprisingly ranked lower.

In a perfect world, people would be judged by their character and ability but it is naive thinking to ignore the role aesthetics play in the modern world. The fact that the world abides by that very thing should be proof that aesthetics are a big deal otherwise beautiful things and people would not be praised and held in high esteem. There is no denying that you as a person will find one person more attractive than another due to their aesthetic nature. I myself have fallen victim to the needs of the flesh by preferring an attractive woman over what could be considered an average looking woman not because of the normal woman being average but because the attractive woman appeals to me. But I do not think that have people (for lack of a better word) lust and want the business from you to be a good trait of beauty. Most people would jump at the chance to be aesthetically beautiful simply because of the perks it provides such as the ability to turn heads and break necks and that certain companies tend to hire people who are aesthetically beautiful (I must emphasize that this is not a business practice that is followed by ALL companies). First impressions are important when meeting new people and normally at first glance people are not looking to see if you are smart but rather if you are attractive. This should at the very least prove that physical appearance matters and is just as, if not more, important as intelligence.

The problem lies in the idea that beauty is solely aesthetic, which has been maintained by the fashion industry and Hollywood. While the industries know that beauty is entirely subjective, they still need to turn a profit by targeting a niche group (beautiful people and people who want to look beautiful). However, those industries don't seem to take into account the damage that their stereotypes cause among impressionable people. Because of that, many women and girls end up going to extreme lengths trying to fit the stereotype formed by Hollywood. From my wasted point of view, most models look the goddamn same. If people need any proof that Hollywood and the fashion industry are just selling the idea of beauty being aesthetic, they just need to compare the image that Hollywood and the fashion industry gives out and look at the reality of what people consider beautiful. Most people don't care on how a person looks so as long as the person they are looking for can cater to their needs.

I guess the moral in this (even alcoholics have morals) would be that people should never try to be something they are not as they can and will eventually lose the very thing that sets you apart as an individual.

In light of that, I feel that it is important to emphasize to people that beauty should not be and is not defined by weight, body structure, skin tone, white teeth, fashion sense and certainly not a surgical procedure. Physical beauty will fade over the fabric of time but true beauty (things like resolve, grit and determination) is timeless.
In the end, all views have both their merits and flaws but the aim of the article was to further understand each ideology so that we can potentially see the view of the other side and also see the grey between the black and white.

Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading¦