Beyond Beauty

Did you know that once upon a time, in the Mayan culture, cross eye was considered beautiful? So even though people were born with beautiful eyes, they had to be distorted in order of fit the then definition of beauty.  The Chinese ladies during Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period would bind their feet around the age of seven to shorten their feet size? They would literally walk on the big toes. Just big toes! Their feet would be shrunk to 3 inches. Isn’t painful to even think about it?

Once, full bodied figure of women was considered beautiful because that would prove that their family could afford to eat. It was a way to show people that they were rich. But today, rich or poor, one starves to look thin even when there is plethora of food on the table. Having a slender waist, an hour-glass figure etc defines beauty prescribed by fantasies.

Beauty is aesthetic. Aesthetic as defined by Oxford dictionary is “A set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement”. In layman terms, a rule to look beautiful. What is the rule of looking beautiful?

Most of your instincts have answered to looking thin, have a beach body defined by magazine, look like the celebrity dolls painted with make up all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that make up is bad; I am just asking you to think how it helps your life? The celebrities apply make-up to look good in camera. If their dark circles are seen in one of the photos taken by an amateur camera and look stunning in HD camera, they just cannot complain “it is the technology’s fault”.It is going to bring down the stock of the companies they are ambassadors for or they have just lost a fan for who they were a role model. Which leads to a downfall of their popularity and being in the show biz is a mixture of good work and popularity.

But you are not always harassed by paparazzi, why do you define yourself to look good with red lipstick when pink suits you better. If your body type is created by nature to be a certain way, why do you take extreme measures of starving or eating more in order to look like someone the media has defined to be beauty. You look stunning in jeans and are very much comfortable with it. But you were told frilly frocks are in fashion for the summer and you saw the beautifully photo shopped lady on the magazine cover with a frock on. You then you try to adjust yourself in a dress manufactured by a company which is not your size and is always showing your panties while you enjoy the cool breeze. Where is the dignity and self respect?

Take a vow, to recreate the definition of beauty. Empower other women to feel comfortable in their own skin. Often celebrities are admired for their outside beauty, but take a peek into their lifestyle and you will realize the effort they put in to look good. It is just not make-up and diets, but exercises too, to keep body and mind fit. With eyes always on them, how do they manage to keep themselves sane? They look gorgeous on the red carpet, cozy in pants at the airport, sexy in movies. Their dressings change with the environment, have you ever thought about it? Do you just wear pants everyday and everywhere to be “I don’t care what people think” girl or do you dress up fashionably to display “I am so in to fashion” and have bleeding heels and sore back because of all the heels you have been roaming around the day.

The world of beauty and fashion is colorful, it gives life to our routine, but often we fall into darkness. We lose our souls to outer beauty which appeases the eyes. And friends, anything that appeases your senses, stays for short period of time. Satisfy the soul and live forever (at least till you breathe) with beauty, grace and brains.