On Beauty

How do you look?

I mean this question to be taken seriously. If you haven't thought about it in a while, do so now. If you've got a mirror nearby, take a look. I mean a good, hard look. Men, you can take part in this, but bear in mind that this blog post is not for you. I'm not trying to discriminate against men, but being heterosexual, pretty much every concern of physical appearance that I have relates to females (that being said, you can interpret for yourself how much of what I'm about to say can apply to men; I make no claim for it either way).

So, now that you're thinking about how you look, try and answer the opening question. Just how do you look? Specifically, ask yourself if you're beautiful. You can use any term you want. Beautiful, pretty, sexy, hot, cute... whatever. They equal out the same for the purposes of this diatribe. So, what are your thoughts? If any amount of statistics or anecdotal evidence are to be believed, you answered a bit in the negative. There's just too much, in your mind, that's unattractive or plain or something of that sort for you to be labeled truly beautiful.

Bullshit.

I have come to notice over the last several years that with frightening regularity, girls have no concept of their own appearance. I'm not saying that they're a little off. We're talking complete optic misconduct. It's uncanny. I have watched and listened as some of the most incredibly beautiful girls I've ever known railed against their own appearance. If this was a selective affliction then perhaps I would not be so upset about it. However, as near as I can tell it affects every woman alive.

There is a faulty belief buried deep within the current social philosophy of our times, namely that a person's physical appearance is unimportant. It started well, back with the sentiment of "real beauty is on the inside." This is true, in the heart of it. That sentiment seems to have been taken a bit too far, though. It seems paradoxical given consumer culture's heavy influence on appearances, yet it is there all the same: a belief that how we look is not a part of us. Our appearance is viewed as something we carry with us, to be looked after, but in the end unimportant. We are scorned for placing emphasis on physical attractiveness in a sexual or romantic partner, deemed shallow and lustful. We cannot take pride in our own appearance for fear of being showy or, in some cases, slutty.

Now, don't get me wrong. A person's appearance is not all there is to them, not by a long shot, and those that seek other solely based on beauty are deemed shallow justly. This does not change the fact, however, that it is a part of us. My body is part of me just as my mind is. I received both of them by the grace of genetics and providence, and faulty though they may be in any given way I make due with them as best I can.

I struggle and fail to accept this belief that somehow the body is an expendable asset in comparison to the rest of the self. The body, the mind, the heart, the soul... They coexist to create each of us, and if any component is failing than the whole suffers. As far as I can reason, the disregard of the body has to do with the fact that it burns out faster than the rest of us; the mind may be sharp while the flesh weakens. This is a valid point, but it must not be allowed to overshadow the fact that while the body burns, it should burn bright.

This is not a digression from my original brief. Rather, now that we have established that physical appearance is important, you can see why I am so concerned by women's general inability to recognize their own beauty. It cannot and should not be disregarded. Not only that, but a falsely negative belief about your appearance does you a great disservice. This brings me to my challenge to ye of little self-appreciation:

Who the fuck are you to tell?

This is a very simple concept. There is one person in this world who is completely incapable of judging your appearance: yourself. The factors involved in this are legion, so much so that I cannot talk about them here in detail. So, let's just go with one, that being my personal favorite: You can never be attracted to yourself.

The obvious exception here is lesbians (and I'm not entirely sure about them, either). That notwithstanding, it is impossible for any straight person to accurately judge their own appearance, solely on the basis that they have no idea how the opposite sex looks as them. This is a crucial concept of understanding your own beauty. You are the not the one to judge.

I'm going to repeat that, because it bears repeating.

You are not the one to judge. You are the one person in this world who will never be attracted to you, no matter what (it's an existential thing). Don't tell yourself how you look. Let other people tell you. This is hard to do simply because it is tendency for humans to trust their own judgement over that of others on all matters. Fight that. If someone properly qualified to judge (either a gay person of your gender or a straight person of the opposite) gives you a genuine report on how you look, believe them. They know better than you. If the report is good, then smile, say thank you, and feel good about yourself. It is not hard.

I constantly lament for my own continuous inability to make any given girl understand how beautiful she is. It is horrible. Nothing that I can do can shift her nagging belief that she is not this wonderful, gorgeous creature who deserves nothing less than adoration. She may be brilliant and funny and interesting and a hundred other fantastic things that all people should be, and she can be aware of it (as often she is), but her perception of her own appearance is a tragic weakness. I wish that I could do something to fix this. I truly do. I have lain awake at nights trying to think of ways to be more convincing. Chances are, more than one such woman in question is reading this blog.

So, for those of you to whom any or all of this essay applies, let me say this, once and for all.

You. Are. Beautiful.

Straight up, downright gorgeous.

You know who you are. And if you don't, I'll be glad to tell you.

On Priorities

You have simply got to set your priorities straight.

In the greatest sense that anything I do could be construed as containing professional ambition, I am more than anything a writer. As such, the best thing that I can do to improve my professional skill is simply to read and write a lot. For this particular field, education is a fraction of a percent as important as practice; this is simply a fact of the matter. I realize that this is not the case for most people. After all, I don't want someone with ambitions to be a doctor trying to build a skill base through trial and error without education. It's just not a good idea.

As a result of this, I feel (and perhaps with unwarrented egotism), that I could make a reasonably decent living in my chosen field without any college education whatsoever. Why, then, am I attending college, you may ask. Answer: I came to college for the experience.

I am becoming more and more aware that I am not joined in this sentiment by all who surround me.

You'll have to excuse whatever blend of horrid work ethic, general malaise, and anti-establishment pride has caused me to value organized academic pursuits less than other activities, but it remains the case. I simply do not understand those among us who prioritize class-based academia above more entertaining venues. You will notice that I specify "class-based" academia. I am not against learning, in fact far to the contrary. Rather, it seems that the type of studying people usually choose over having fun comes in the guise of organized class work. Homework. Papers. Lab reports. Exams.

I want you to try an experiment. Just bear with me. Soon, you will be faced with a clear choice of how to spend your time one evening. One choice will be an entertaining one, a social one. It could be video games, capture the flag, partying, or just hanging out. The other will involve schoolwork, probably an exam the next day at 9:00 AM that you're totally not ready for. Now, the next time this situation comes up and you're about to skip out on your friends to study, I want to stop and reconsider. And then I want you to choose the social option. Don't worry about your test. It will be there when the game is over, when the party disperses. It's not going anywhere without you.

You will find, at the conclusion of this exercise, a very curious thing: your work will get done. This is not magic nor metaphysics, but a simple phenomenon of human psychology. When you get back from your friend's house at 1:00 in the morning and still have that paper to write, you will discover that you have suddenly gained the capability to crank out a five page paper in two hours and still get enough sleep to pay attention in both your morning lectures that day. It's amazing. You will get prepared for your test, your journal entries will be complete, and your paper will get finished. This is a principle that I have abided by as far as my memory of academic work reaches (six years at the very least), and it has never, in my recollection, failed me:

The work will get done.

You only live once. You are here now. You and your friends are getting older, more tired, less brazen, less energetic, more sickly every day. I know, I know, this week is just bad for you. You've got X paper due and Y test on Friday. But I've got news for you. Next week will not be any better. Nor will the next. Or the next. You make the time now. Tonight. This week. This weekend. Not the next. Because I'll tell you right now, the weekends are running out. I'm watching it happen right before my eyes. And I cannot stand the idea that I am missing out on valuable time with valuable people building happy memories and living my life in the glory to which I've become accustomed because I was so bloody concerned about some stupid fucking term paper.

It's just not that important.

On Assholes

As often happens, I have noticed a trend.

This is, unlike many others, a very disturbing trend. It has to do with assholes. Specifically, assholes who are male. More specifically, males who behave like assholes in regards to women.

In thinking back over the last several years of my life, it seems that an extraordinarily high percentage of my female peers have been scarred by the substandard behavior of a male paramour. To get an idea of the amount of such girls, try this visualization. Take a football stadium filled with every girl that I have ever met. Then, add in all of their girlfriends, and their girlfriends. And their sisters. And cousins. And hated enemies. Then, have all of them asexually reproduce several times until the stadium is in a state that could only be described as 'awash' in female personages.

That gives you some idea.

I have several questions that have been spawned by this exercise in the appreciation of human filth. Several of them revolve around the judgment of the girls in question for even getting involved with the aforementioned scum. However, being myself familiar with the lapses in good sense that hormones and the wondrous magic of love can bring, I will refrain from passing judgment on the female side of the equation. Consider it a practice in good form. Which, of course, brings me to my real question:

Who the hell are these guys?

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but I am genuinely curious about this point. Where are the described assholes? I feel sure that I'm not friends with any of them, and I am friends with a lot of guys, at least in passing. It seems like I would encounter some of them at least from time to time.

Apparently, though (and bear in mind that I'm taking this a bit on faith), they do exist. There are guys who are manipulative. There are guys who lie. There are guys whose descriptions start out at neurotic and work up to insane. There are guys who cheat (and don't even get me started on these fuckers).

I can't help but wonder what must go through the heads of these paragons of social Machiavellianism. Pardon my naiveté, but I can't quite wrap my mind around the idea of a man laying next to a woman and plotting something that he know will hurt her. I can't understand the kind of mind that would allow a man to promise a girl one thing knowing that he will break that promise as soon as he gets what he wants. I can't imagine a man who could enter, live, and exit a relationship without the realization that if is she is not happy with it, then he can't be.

These are basic principles which seem to have been forgotten somewhere along the line by certain members of the male population. I would seek to offer hope to those who have painfully encountered this problem firsthand, and I would like to do it with as little pretentiousness and self-importance as possible. So take my word for it: I know good men. Honest, decent, fair, loving men. Chances are that several of them have read this blog. I can name names, and would in a heartbeat, should the situation require it. It is a small comfort in a small sense, but it is all I can offer to anyone, including myself.

And it's really all we have.

On Friendship

Friendships are curious things. They are extremely important to our lives in every way, and yet people don't seem to think about them very much. They often do not seem to end regardless of circumstance, yet they always require a certain level of maintenance and devotion. To be truly healthy, they require honesty, respect, and humor, yet often they seem to get along just fine without any of these things.

I was thinking recently about a friend of mine with whom I have an interesting relationship. I had not really thought about it in this context before, but a couple of days ago it hit me: In three years of friendship (three YEARS), he has not once requested my company as a friend. Not one call to come over and play some video games. Not one invitation to play frisbee on the quad. Not even simple dinner plans at his initiation. Nothing.

If this sounds odd to you, or even a little pathetic, let me assure you that it does to me as well. The only reason that this has gone on for so long in the first place is because it is so unusual that it hadn't even occurred to me to consider it. But, now that I have realized it, the question remains as to what to do about it.

What do you do when a friendship becomes unhealthy? Do you plug more of your time and energy into it in an effort to resuscitate it? How much do you work at it before you give up? How much pull can you put in before you hit that brick wall where you need him to push and help you from his end? Can you ever give up in good conscience?

I suffer, as it happens, from crippling sentimentality. It pains me to look at someone that I enjoy and value as a friend and admit that the ideals that I hold for that friendship may be a lost cause. It pains me even more to stop fighting for that cause, lost though it may be. But it must be done. Ballast must be cut, dead weight removed. We each have a very limited amount of time and energy, and it must be devoted to receptive outlets. Those people who means less to you must fade away so that you might strengthen what you have with those who are most important.

A very wise friend of mine, who's opinions I generally respect greatly, told me recently that it was good policy to take a half hour at the end of the day and sit in silence, gathering one's thoughts and taking stock of life. I believe that this concept is a valuable one and a very good idea. Often, there will come times in which you must sit back and look at those you love and decide what your best bet is for someone who is willing and able to love you back. You must ask yourself a very difficult question and find a way to answer it in very real terms.

Where do your loyalties lie?

On Control

Despite appearances to the contrary, I consider myself to be a very stable, level-headed fellow. It is actually a point of pride to treat any given situation with a cool, rational eye and judge it with a hand of complete control on emotion and baser aspects of my humanity.

However, I myself am often surprised by the complexities of human psychology, including my own.

There was an incident a couple of nights ago. The smallest of things, really. Late at night, returning home from a poker tournament, I was just entering my dorm when I ran into a girl, a friend of mine. Now, to understand this, you must be aware of a couple things. Though she is my friend, we are not close by any stretch of the imagination. We talk on the rare occasions that we run into each other, but we do not seek out each other for company. In this past, we went on one - ONE - date, which did not work out. As you might guess, she is not heavy on my mind at any given time. Wholly unremarkable, save for the fact that she has a good heart and is really, extraordinarily hot.

So, I run into this girl, who is going clubbing on Franklin (this being a Thursday night, and all), accompanied by a rather strapping young man, who I can only assume is a new boyfriend. A fully innocuous meeting that lasted all of sixty seconds.

And it put me in a funk.

I couldn't exactly tell you why in any way that makes sense. Truth be told, that may be the most upsetting part of the whole affair; I have no real idea what truly brought on this strange melancholy.

I learned relatively early on in life to keep a leash on emotion. This is not to say that I restrain emotional investment in most anything. In fact, I think most of us would agree that I'm rather free with my feelings, all else being equal. Rather, I have found it useful and often necessary to be able to distance myself in certain situations. A comparison could be made to the patron of a bar who when drinking socially has a wonderful time and enjoys life to the fullest, yet sometimes gets in over his head and needs to be cut off by the bartender.

Despite this extensive training at very capable (and anonymous) hands, I am constantly reminded that control over oneself is at best a flawed ideal. I would venture to guess that it is something of a struggle for all people, admittedly at different degrees.

Are there situations in which the rational mind can be completely overwhelmed and one is dominated completely by sentiment? Is it possible to enjoy all of the fruits of love and passion and fury, yet still train oneself to be rid of them when need be? If we could train ourselves this way, should we?

I am forced to hope that it is possible to achieve. Otherwise, we are forced to face the idea of living at the mercy of forces beyond our control, something which I am not prepared to accept without a fight.

There are many incidents in my life, in your lives that speak to you on that uncontrolled, uncontrollable level. You cannot stop them, no matter how you try. Can you? You want. You need. You hate. You miss. You laugh. You love.

And so do I.