Monday, March 18, 2013

Precious Beauty


"As if you were on fire from within. The moon lives in the lining of your skin"
Sometimes you have something before you and it gives you intense pleasure to have owned it. Other times you no longer own it but even then it gives you another kind of pleasure mixed with pain to have it in your memories. Pain can thus be related to pleasure. Something that is akin to getting the body tattooed or ears pierced. And nowadays the threshold for enduring pain in order to look beautiful has increased. i do feel cynical as i turn the pages of the newspaper which tempt me to try. But mostly i want to bang my head against the wall. When opportunity presents itself i love to sermonize on that issue.
Beauty of course...what else.

i had once something very beautiful but now it's in my memory and safe for eternity in my storage and i would like to revisit my Precious once again. For the simple fact that so many conflicting thoughts about beauty is clouding my senses and i need some clarity.
i also seem to be getting worried about my own transition in which i find beauty more in objects, animals, birds, insects, trees, plants, and among them what some would call weeds, also rocks and even any place that has nothing but barrenness. As far as people are concerned nothing really feels beautiful and true any more although i do keep lying and faking appreciation. Don't know why i have to do it but can't be too harsh on myself now. Just like the rest of it maybe we are all conditioned to appreciate artificiality more.

i look at myself too in the mirror and have noticed that the plain me is no longer any beauty to reckon with. But with the help of some facade in the garb of a trendy attire matched with some artificiality which is commonly known as eye-liner, lip gloss and some accessories, shoes included i sure do look The Who that can easily grab some envious attention plus compliments to her credit.
i look at the mirror and chide the plain myself me with what he said, " There are no bad pictures, that's how your face looks sometimes."
i question about looking common and fat thus feeling less important and once again i hear his words, " The lord prefers common- looking people. That is why he made so many of them."
Sure since i am talking about beauty and since the movie is on my mind i can't help thinking about beautiful Precious and Abraham Lincoln.

Precious
Now this is what i would call a true beauty. For the sheer fact that it provides me with a perceptual experience of pleasure and satisfaction. Today as i use it to illustrate my point i have to reiterate that this beauty is safely preserved in my memory is no longer with me and thus the pleasure in that pain that one feels due to the absence or loss. i felt that need that urge to dig in because i am beginning to endorse what i had read a long time ago but had not given it even a minute of attention then. Although it sounded heavy and had hastily scribbled it in my diary.
" A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture everyday of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul."
i dig into this and remember the luring ads in the newspapers and what comes to my mind at once is that nature does not need any make up, or any operation to look beautiful. It just is. "Beauty is not caused. It is."
     
Each and every time i think of Precious i also remember well enough my own feeling of attraction and emotional well being. Beauty often involves this interpretation of it being in balance and having harmony with nature and probably that's why beauty subjectively can be said to be in the eye of the beholder. But every time Precious comes marching into my senses i get all reasons to debate the common as crow adage, " Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder".
     
i am beginning to believe that true beauty is getting rarer like this species of succulent heart leaf iceplant Aptenia cordifolia also known as Baby Sun Rose.
 Because if truth is beauty or vice versa then why are we all hell bent on shedding that truth and why are we succumbing more and more towards donning artificiality. Is it because we are beginning to doubt. Whatever happened to, " No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful." or " Somethings are beautiful, not only in their looks, but for what they are."

Beauty and ugliness has been on my mind these past few days. Picking up the newspaper everyday brings it even more to the fore. There are newer stories, pictures and very many ads that talk about beauty. Only thing they are getting more and more confused. And just like how friends have become synonymous with networks so has the concept of physical appearance become synonymous with beauty.

 i had known of that great man Abraham Lincoln even when i was a kid in school yet after watching the movie Lincoln i have been pre-occupied by how he has been described in black and white. And the more i think about the great man and construct pictures of him in my imagination he does not seem to be scary at all. Rather when i think of him i feel stronger about " What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful."

It is settled then there is no need to make that phone call the one which promises the better new you rather i'd like to concentrate on that fire within.
Thank you Precious for had i not indulged into you it would not have dawned upon me that true beauty is ageless and cannot be manufactured. Once again i am beginning to feel joy and willing to accept what Mr Lincoln has rightly said, "Life is hard but so very beautiful."





4 comments:

  1. Dear Shivani:

    Thanks for guiding me here. You raise a lot of questions on many core aspects of life. One could actually do a Ph. D. in this topic! I think there can be no universal concept of beauty and it varies from culture to culture, I reckon. And physical beauty is again a construct that we build around certain features. I specifically like the way you say, "common and fat." Even I've thought of this many times and it still intrigues me. What is the quality of common? Why does common mean so much? Do you find many faces like yours that you think of yourself as "common?" I guess extra things like gloss, kajal and the like strives to enhance us and hence calling them artificial is unwarranted for.

    Loved this process of thoughts, Shivanai.

    Joy always,
    Susan

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  2. @Susan thank u girl for answering my call that too so promptly. Yeah the topic is such one could do a Ph.D . Thank u for ur valuable insight. Actually feels gud to hear that gloss, kajal and the likes are enhancers. But the question remains...do we really need enhancers to feel beautiful?
    Aaaargh! let's me give it up. Thanx girl and yes Joy Always to you too. :)

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  3. Let's think of them like clothes - enhancing our selves.

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  4. @ Susan...hey gud to have u back here...feels like we are having a warm coffee table conversation. Gr8 i get it...will think on those lines now...'enhancing our selves'...
    Feels gud thinking this way. Thank u sweet sweet Susanna. Hugs.

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