beauty in the eye of the beholder

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having never looked like Barbie, I always wondered what it would be like to be known as a ‘beauty’. It seems that most of the standards we have about beauty are hard calls for most of us, but we keep trying, no matter how sane we are???? What is that about??? When I was at high school, I was chosen to be best friends with the most popular & generally acclaimed ‘beautiful’ girl. She was renown at our school because she had even done a few ads for TV. And I figured that I must have been no competition for her, so pretty safe, cause I was what my mother termed an ‘ugly duckling’! I guess I listened to all her exploits cause I didn’t have any & I gained a side popularity with all the boys, cause they wanted to know stuff about her. We had a bit of a bust up before we finished high school because she got pregnant & had an abortion, all without telling me. She said later that I was too naive & couldn’t have taken it! Needless to say we never really patched the friendship up again, as I got to finally see how I looked through her eyes & that she had been having a friendship with me but watching what she told me – it doesn’t breed a lot of trust, at least from my side! I like the one liner below, it says a lot!

‘If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?’ Stephen Wright

beauty in the eye of the beholder

So I went through all the usual punishment that we did in the 60′s to look beautiful, including sitting under a hair dryer and even got burnt ears as a consolation prize. I was a slow developer as regards boys (yes I agree with my friend – a little naive). I had swallowed my mother’s throw away comment that I was an ugly duckling to heart & so was walking around thinking I was ugly???? Looking at photos of myself as a teenager, I think that this comment kept me from seeing that I was attractive in my own individual way and in valuing some of the great things about myself. I guess it was my mother’s way of keeping me from ever being competition with her. And so I lacked any confidence, just like she did, in my own beauty, both inner or outer.

Beauty shop

And that is the point, beauty can really & truly come from within, from a confidence in the beauty of who we know we are. The point about beauty is that it hooks onto a person’s values. So if I hold humor to be of high value, I can think someone that is really funny as the most beautiful thing in the Universe! If someone holds blond hair to be of high value, then they will find blonds beautiful (with some disclaimers obviously) and maybe not find brunettes or redheads beautiful. That’s how it goes really, simple as that! So you could be jumping through a lot of hoops, if you are looking to be beautiful with each person you meet as a result of their differing standards & values. Just because I value humor doesn’t mean that humor is the new look for everyone, it’s just for me. Somehow certain trends come out of the collective unconscious & become popular with the general populace, such as thin & then they can stick around for a while. Instead of thinking that this may be a raw opposite reaction to our general collective over-indulgence in just about everything, some young girls try to starve themselves to death in the pursuit of this beauty ideal. At least in my day, hair dryers & burnt ears were the only costs to our pursuit of beauty.

Curl up & dye

My point is that beauty is a pretty personal thing & also a cultural thing – fat is considered something to strive for in some countries whereas thin is what the West is our standard. Some of us hit the mark, having similar requirements for the current beauty trend & some of us miss out! I was skinny as a rake & tall for a girl when I was in puberty, no matter how much I ate & believe me I ate! Then the Collective decided that Jean Shrimp ‘The Shrimp’ & ‘Twiggy’ were the 60′s standard of beauty. Wasn’t I pleased, no more stuffing padding into bras that never really fitted! I was naturally tall & thin & in some way I was like what some were striving for at the time. Big deal, it didn’t do much for me at the time really – it gave me nothing of substance. So in retrospect & with the wisdom of age, I say play with beauty trends but never take them too seriously – things go in & out of fashion at a moment’s notice or with the changing planetary configurations. An example, David Bowie who had dressed outrageously for a guy for years suddenly started wearing suits when Neptune (the planet that rules trends & fashion) went from Sagittarius (ruling free spirit) into Capricorn (which rules business & straight lines & structure).

I will leave you with this funny ad which leaves room for thought, enjoy….

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  • http://blog.truecolours.ie Mary Varilly

    So you know what became of the ugly duckling? A beautiful swan, of course! And do you now sail majestically across the waters of life (all the while with webbed feet working furiously below the surface!)?

    Perhaps your Mum called you that not so much for you not to be competition for her, but rather because she was very likely seeing how much you resembled her and projecting her own lack of self-love and self-acceptance on to you… And little children do tend to see their Mum’s as beautiful, if only the Mums would!

    Happy Christmas!