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Thursday, June 4, 2009

Philosophy: What is Beauty?

Dictionary.com:
1.The quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
2.A beautiful person, esp. a woman.
3.A beautiful thing, as a work of art or a building.
4.Often, beauties. something that is beautiful in nature or in some natural or artificial environment.
5.An individually pleasing or beautiful quality; grace; charm
6.Informal. a particular advantage: One of the beauties of this medicine is the freedom from aftereffects.
7.(usually used ironically) something extraordinary: My sunburn was a real beauty.
8.something excellent of its kind: My old car was a beauty.
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Beauty seems to be a very complicated thing, as you can see from the many definitions. However, I'm sure that many tend to liken beauty as a skin-deep prospect, what you can see on the outside. Also, there is inner-beauty,the sort of "deeper" beauty, it cannot be seen, but ironically is beautiful at the same time. Most of the time, many people will agree inner-beauty strikes more importance in their life, or at least, gives much more of a lasting impression.

This is what I mean:
Skin-deep beauty is what you see on the outside; but however pleasant it is to the eye, what does it tell you about the person? Character traits, personality and many other abstract qualities are hidden behind skin-deep beauty, and only the inner beauty of a person can unveil all those.

I'm sure in your life, you have hardly judged anyone solely by skin-deep beauty. Probably you have, but that might only be an initial opinion of the person or thing, but as you get to know he/she/it more you start to realise whether it was right for skin-deep beauty to have a higher standing over inner beaty when it comes to judging of one's placing in your life.

After all this, I feel it comes down all to a matter of different people's perspective. Hence the idiom "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder." Personally, I feel that this idiom lead me to a thought. Beauty, whether superficial or deep, gives each person an individual speciality because of how they view it. It is an individual's opinion of beauty that proves how different one is from the rest. Basically, our personal take on beuaty illuminates our style and uniqueness.

As for my very own take on beauty, I think it is the representation of what we think is pleasant in life.
Thank You.

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