I like to think about it – beauty – in terms of its cultural connotations: who it includes, who it excludes, the prejudices involved, who is favored, and who isn’t. But from a personal perspective, I have always been uncomfortable. To the point that I would just rather not think about it at all.
I’ve been distracting people from looking at me since I was a child. “Please focus on my intelligence, focus on my talents, focus on the good I can put in the world, focus on how hard I try, focus on what I can achieve. Focus on everything but my face. Please don’t look at my face.”
I imagine – even though I’m not sure either – that there are people, especially women who just know they are pretty. They just know. Maybe it’s the looks they get, the feelings they experience when they look in the mirror – they just know. I have no clue what this is like. I find myself often wondering what beauty is anyway.
I ponder, if everyone is beautiful, then is anyone really beautiful?
I know when I find a piece of artwork beautiful. I know when I am in a place that makes me feel beautiful. I know when I am with a person that makes me feel beautiful. But I don’t know what it means to be beautiful in the societal sense. Not really anyway.
