This is a long post, but if this is a topic that interests/bothers you, please read to the end! You may learn something, or be able to teach me something if I've got it wrong!
There seems to be a big message that is cropping up more and more (or perhaps I'm just noticing it more), and it's all about what beauty really is. Let me explain...
People have noticed big problems with lots of really unhelpful messages from media, magazines, products and so on about the way people "should" look and appear. And people have, very rightly, connected this to problems with low self-esteem and so on. And people, again very rightly, want to tackle this.
So lots of attempts have been made to make people see that they don't need to worry about the way they look. And I believe that's great, please, don't get the wrong impression from this post, I think a big effort needs to be made to fight these really damaging messages that seem so unavoidable about self-image and so on.
But most of them, I think, really just don't deal with the issue, check out this video I saw a while back as an example... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk
Seems great, doesn't it? I mean, they're helping people feel more self-confident, and realise that they look more attractive than they thought they did... that's good... right? Go back to 2 minutes and 12 seconds in and listen to what the woman says. Here it is typed out, "I should be more grateful of my natural beauty; it impacts the choices in the friends that we make, the jobs that we apply for, how we treat our children, it impacts everything, it couldn't be more critical to your happiness."
This isn't fixing the problem. Why? We can't fight people viewing beauty wrongly by telling people that they're more beautiful than they think they are, as they're still judging and defining themselves based on how they look. Does this mean that someone "less beautiful" is less of a person? Or can't be as happy? And does thinking that you're beautiful actually make you a nicer person to be around? Does it actually make you a more generous, selfless, compassionate and loving person? Are they not better qualities?
(Apologies to Dove, what you were trying to do was a step forward, and that's a good thing. I'm just trying to say I don't think it's the whole way by any means.)
No, we have to go deeper than trying to convince people that they're more beautiful than they think they are, if we're going to have any hope of fixing this.
So people do, take this video for an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2utmIdVHJOM (again, before I say what I don't like about this, really big congrats to her for standing up and being so open, that's really courageous, and most of what she says I really agree with!!)
She rightly analyses that judging ourselves on the way we look is never going to fix the problem, and that we need to go deeper. It's something to do with who we are on the inside. But, right after that is where I think she falls down. She says, "We need to learn to love ourselves, and who we are as people because loving ourselves is truly beautiful."
Really? I don't think so. And I mean no disrespect to her, from one respect I can see where she's coming from. But think about it, shouldn't we be selfless, compassionate, loving of other people, totally humble (and by that I don't mean thinking about how awful we are, I mean just simply thinking about ourselves less (see my other post on humility))? Isn't that the kind of person that's nicest to be around, rather than the self-loving person?
And even if someone who loves themself wasn't that bad to be around, what grounds do they love themself on? There must be some criteria. Doesn't that just change what we obsess about from "outward beauty" to something else?
I think she too has got the wrong impression of what beauty is, and how we should view it.
Just to reinforce my point, people are ugly on the inside. Sometimes it's harder to see than other times, but we've all got our dark places, our nasty thoughts or feelings, our regrets, guilt and shame. We don't control our darkest places, we can't. People try, they meditate, repeat mantras, try to do more good things, give something up for lent, make a New Year's resolution or whatever else, but at the end of the day, we are naturally ugly on the inside, and incapable of changing ourselves.
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/216382/why-i-dont-give-a-shit-about-what-your-real-life-barbie-looks-like/ makes another really good set of points, which I think link back to my problem with the Dove example partly. But notice where they says real beauty comes from? They say real beauty comes from what you can do, what you can achieve ("Finally she felt she was more than how she looked, and became what she could do. And that is the difference."). That also sounds pretty appealing at first. It makes sense, doesn't it? But then, that leads to all sorts of problems. What about a physically or mentally disabled person, are they less beautiful than someone who's not? Just because they can't be a fireman or a doctor, does that make them less beautiful, or less of a person?
There are more links and examples I could give, but this post is getting pretty long and pretty grim. What I hope you've seen is that everyone seems to have acknowledged that we don't normally view beauty rightly, but no one seems to have a decent explanation of what beauty really is, where it comes from, or how to view it and ourselves.
What have we got so far?
1) We don't want beauty to be something physical, because we can't be physically beautiful in a way that will ever satisfy us. Not only that, but if that's where we find our identity, then we're at the mercies of age, health, other people's opinions, wealth etc, and are placing ourselves either above or below other people.
2) We don't want beauty to be defined by our character as our characters are frail and messed up. Even when we're confident, helpful, generous etc, we're still ugly on the inside (more than we like to think).
3) We don't want to be beautiful by what we achieve and do, as that limits people's beauty by their circumstances, opportunities, health, etc. It also makes good things we do come from selfish motives (i.e., if you start an amazing charity, but you think that beauty comes from what you achieve, then you may just be doing it for selfish reasons), which isn't good.
Notice what's going on there? We're trying to change the definition of beauty to be something that we like and that we think we can be. What we're actually talking about here is self-satisfaction, which isn't the same as beauty. Let's define both:
- Beauty: A pleasing quality, either visually, audibly, emotionally or whatever else. I think that's a reasonable definition, as people describe things that look nice as beautiful in appearance, people who seem really nice as beautiful in character or songs that sounds amazing as beautiful to the ears.
- Self-satisfaction: Being content in (not wanting or needing anything else other than) yourself.
We have a desire to be satisfied with who we are, to be self-satisfied. The thing is there's no such thing as self-satisfaction. Why? Humans are, in general, social and we crave acceptance and love from others, we're not enough for ourselves. So we look to beauty. Why beauty? Because beauty is pleasing in its qualities and so we think if we're beautiful then we will please others and so be accepted and loved by them, and so be satisfied. The trouble is, as we saw above, that however we try to have pleasing qualities, be it in the way we look, think or act, we place ourselves in a cut-throat competition that we just can't win.
Great looks, character, achievements and so on are all beautiful things. Let's not deny that. Let's instead question where we look for satisfaction and let's question how important beauty is.
If we want to be satisfied, we need something fulfilling, achievable and unchanging.
The Bible tells us that true satisfaction is found in God and that we were made to have a relationship with Him. The Bible uses analogies to try and help us understand what having a relationship with God is like. It describes it as being like the child of the perfect Father, or the wife of the perfect husband, but even better! In God we have the love and acceptance that we crave, the Father delights in us like a parent delights in a child, and Jesus delights in us like a husband delights in a wife, but even more! Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." The desires of your heart being, if you've delighted yourself in God, God. That's where you find satisfaction.
And God also deals with the problem of "never being beautiful enough". God offers forgiveness and change through Jesus' death on the cross and through filling us with the Holy Spirit. And He promises new bodies for the next life. But more than all that, we know that, if you've accepted Jesus' death in your place, when God sees you, He sees you with Jesus' matchless goodness and beauty.
So does it matter if we're beautiful here and now? Not really, because where we find our satisfaction is no longer in our beauty. Not only that, but we don't find meaning, value, worth, indentity or anything else like that in beauty, but in God instead. What does that mean for us here and now? No stress over how we look, no false motives for doing good things and no discrimination between people based on how they look, who they are or what they can do. It frees us up to love people simply because love is good, not for the sake of getting love and acceptance back. (Though this doesn't mean that we won't be tempted to go back to looking for satisfaction in other things, that's a battle everyone has to face in this life).
If you don't agree with me, then put what I've said to the test. See if you can think of anything or anyone else that really, lastingly, totally offers the complete satisfaction that you desire.
Instead of trying to change the definition for beauty, we should just stop trying to find satisfaction in beauty and try to find it in something/someone that can actually deliver. I believe that someone is God.
[Edit, saw this video recently, it's not exactly about beauty, but it is about identity, have a watch and compare it to the other messages that people had about identity based on their definition of beauty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ-WuFAlQlY&list=PLD5A7385740E014B4 ]
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