INTRODUCTION
For my senior project my parents (knowing that I wrestled with the subject) challenged me to study beauty. Already having an extensive amount of questions about it, the challenge came as a welcome one. I began my research not in order to necessarily come to any firm conclusions about beauty, but rather to get a better handle on the thoughts and questions about it that I know plague so many people; including myself.
I began this project fully expecting to finish on time with a polished product. (HA!)
Now I see that this is a project I may continue for years to come. There are so many questions and thoughts that I have yet to research, so much I still want to discover, and am discovering. Beauty is a nearly endless subject.
This project began as a journal, a simple way to document my thoughts, feelings and questions about the vast complexity of beauty. In it I do my best to take account of the culture around me, my own personal perspectives, and the perspectives of others. It’s not incredibly in-depth, but rather an overview of many different ideas and information.
With this journal I desire to inform and encourage people of every age and gender; because I don’t believe in the cultures facades of beauty. I desire to put down in writing the words I wish had been said to me in middle school, because I believe "Beauty belongs to everybody." - Katie Meade
(Below is a journal entry that gives a summation to my heart behind the project.)
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What is beauty? It is a question I feel is seldom asked, and seldom answered. Beauty is such a vague thing. Slippery in its nature. It is as vast as the stars, yet lies within the smallest of things. Down to the atoms of the cells inside your very bones. It’s there. Beauty is everywhere. Yet how can it be defined? How can it be boiled down to simple words and syllables? Can we say that beauty is mathematical? Can we say that it is predictable or has any pattern at all?
No matter how hard we try, we cannot draw our maps and tell beauty to follow our roads. It is ever surprising. I find it in the most unlikely of places. The places I have deemed unfit for life, or even ugly. Somehow, beauty's life grows even there. It is a mysterious thing. Unexplainable. Perhaps that’s why we’re so enraptured by it. Because no matter how hard we try, we cannot bring beauty down to earth. We cannot fit it inside our box of definitions and rules. Perhaps that’s why we need it so bad. Maybe we need things that are unexplainable so we can remember that there are things greater and bigger than ourselves.
You see, in my life I have believed that beauty is "A+B=C".
An equation.
If you do your makeup like this, and dress like this, and do this workout, then you are beautiful. However, I am beginning to believe that beauty is less of an equation to be followed or solved, and more a force of nature to be in awe of.
The reasons for this transition of thought are presented in this journal. A series of small revelations collected and documented to the best of my ability.
I believe that beauty is so much bigger than us. I believe that it’s so much bigger than physical attraction and some nice scenery.
Beauty is the wind blowing your hair, beauty is in the Jaguars walk, and the ocean's dark depths. Beauty is in your mothers laugh and a good conversation. Beauty is in the rainstorm, and the desert, and that hard lesson you learned, but are glad you learned it. Beauty is in a child’s innocence and an old man's resilience. It is everywhere.
I suppose what I’m trying to get at is that I just want to get to know beauty. I want all of us to. I would like to ask beauty questions and see who she really is. But more than that, I think I’d like to remember who she’s not.