The Concept Of Beauty | Teen Ink

The Concept Of Beauty

April 25, 2019
By Shifa10 BRONZE, Mumbai, Other
Shifa10 BRONZE, Mumbai, Other
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

BEAUTY is so much more than just an attribute. With growing consciousness and elevation of beauty standards, people use beauty as an indicator to define others, to scrutinize others, and most importantly, to undermine others. It’s not only we people, the very critics who have a take on nearly everything; it is science that determines a person’s beauty using a ratio. A ratio! A numerical value! We sure are talking facts here. 


It is a fact that human beauty is based on the Divine Ratio, 1:1.618. This particular ratio or the phi number 1.618, which determines the relationship of the center of your pupil with the bottom of your teeth and the bottom of your chin, the outer and inner edges of your eyes with the center of your nose, the outer edges of your lips with the upper ridges of your lips, and many such facial features, is an impeccable indicator that fathoms your beauty.


Though informative, this eye-opener has birthed a few questions which are milling around my head. What if there’s a slight deviation in the rigid ratio? Did the Greeks, the ones who studied this ratio, ever state that the same can be used to fathom a person’s beauty? Or that if any one of the relation fails to achieve this ratio, it results in the person being hideous?

What is the scientific evidence that a deviation (slight or not) from the ratio means that you’re ugly? Who said that a broader nose or smaller eyes aren’t pretty? Who said that dark skin or a fairly chubby physique can’t be winsome?

No one.
The truth is that we humans exist in all shapes and sizes. All of us are impeccably beautiful in our own way, irrespective of the ratios the fashion our facial attributes. No ratio in the world can fathom anyone’s beauty. Hence, this theory falls flat.

What is perfection anyway? A mere artifice. So why strive for it?


Ideal beauty is  a vague concept devised by our society which can be acquired by achieving certain standards set up by it (which, trust me, have no meaning). And, the irony is that we don’t even know on what basis are these standards set up or who set them up. We’re blind followers, aiming to please an unknown entity that doesn’t even care a whit.


If I tell you that I’m going to conclude this article on a positive note, it would be a blatant lie. The truth is that our world is shallow. With growing materialism in the present times, people find themselves to be inextricably attached to artificiality which is nothing but transitory in nature.


Physical beauty is ephemeral. It wears off once you wear out; it dies once you breathe your last. Remember, you’re going to be a mere rotting mass of decaying matter once you’re buried.


But fret not, for there’s still hope.


The beauty that resides in your heart is immortal, eternal. Its luminosity persists even after you die. The sound of your good deeds resonates even when you aren’t there anymore.


Thus, you and your beauty become immortal, eternal, everlasting…


The author's comments:

"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" clearly points towards the subjectivity of appeal of beauty. What one person finds beautiful/attractive may not appeal to another. But the age-old beauty standards have bulldozed many of us to adhere to those certain aspects to be perceived beautiful. It is because of these arbitrary standards that more and more people have started to feel inadequate. Ergo, I've written this article in an attempt to debunk the ideology of beauty being objective and eliminate the feeling of inadequacy that comes with deviating from such predetermined norms.

Cheers!  


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