What is Beauty ?

WHAT IS BEAUTY ? HOW CAN YOU DEFINE IT ?


Have these questions ever plagued you ? Then read on to find out what true beauty really is.

Let's talk about beauty. It must be terribly hard to conceive of something so intangible. Don't you disagree? Surely you have notions of beauty? You might think that you can spot beauty in a glossy Ferrari, or in that statuesque girl on the May page of the calendar. But the truth is, or as it appears to the writer of this article, that you cannot touch beauty. Everything goes by in lightning speed and as you begin to think that you have grasped beauty, you lose sight of it.

"Everything goes by in lightning speed and as you begin to think that you have grasped beauty, you lose sight of it."

Your beauty might lie in the ocean-blue eyes of a boy. Your beauty might lie in a cup of steaming coffee. Your beauty might lie in your mother's arms around you. Your beauty might lie in the fragrance of crisp dollars. I suppose you would agree that all of this, very naturally, delights someone or the other. And all of it is tangible. You still disagree with me when I tell you that I think we do not understand beauty. You will tell me you aren't materialistic, you love to travel to remote places just to watch an alien sunset. But think again. Do you understand beauty?

Think of John Keats' famous lines where he proclaims that truth is beauty and beauty truth, and how that is all you know on Earth and all you need to know. So can you touch the truth? Here we are, together in this mighty world, but it is so wide that our versions of truth are miles and miles apart. So how do you capture the truth? Gautama Buddha said that the sun, the moon and the truth can never stay hidden for long. But even the sun and the moon become subjective reality to people on two opposite poles.

I have a friend who, when he looks up into his father's eyes, sees no beauty. I know someone who, at the thought of sunset, trembles and sighs with loneliness. I know of this lady who regularly chops off her little boy's hair because she thinks it grows out untidy. They see no beauty in those places.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, but also in his soul. Do you ever look at a pile of rubble the construction-workers have left near your backdoor and think it beautiful? Do you ever see the flatness of the summer sky in a tropical country and as it scatters perspiration across your forehead, think it beautiful? Do you ever see a cat excrete and cover up the rubbish in a hole that he digs up with his paw and think it beautiful? If you do, it is your own vulnerability that you are in love with.

We find the things we love beautiful. And if you open up that very fragile heart of yours so much so that it so very easily conceived of beauty, then yes, you have loved your own vulnerability. If you have let your mind lose control and let it ride the wind, so much so that each thought comes into focus and strikes you into amazement, then yes, you have loved your own vulnerability.

|| " We find the things we love beautiful. And if you open up that very fragile heart of yours so much so that it so very easily conceived of beauty, then yes, you have loved your own vulnerability. " ||

You are your own beauty. You are your own truth. The moment you lose sight of your own trembling tenderness, these smokey notions disperse into nothingness. So come, be intangible. Be obscure. Come, be confused. In your own vulnerability, you might chance upon beauty. And that is the nearest you can go to the absolute truth.

"You are your own beauty. You are your own truth."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :-

A student of English literature from St. Xavier's college, Kolkata, Shaoni Sarkar is a new addition to our ExPRESS Family. She, apart from writing, loves to read.