What is Beauty?

An Aesthetic Perspective of Power

What is beauty?

There she stands, both strong and pure, with head held high and a furrowed pensive sneer plastered across her countenance hinting at strength of resolve; a symbol of quiet dignity and power of Will that strikes you like a slap in the face and reminds you of what is possible and not just an unapproachable ideal to be fantasized over or that can only be found in books and movie screens.

She is beautiful, a fact made all the more poignant by her complete innocence about it, her complete ignorance concerning her own force of presence.

She feels her power, sometimes, she perceives the effects of it on the world around her but she lacks the ego and the presumptuous nature to fully appreciate it.

Her pride is often misconstrued as arrogance and her nobility as snobbishness.

This is power in its purest form. It just exudes itself in genuine honesty and is not the product of imitation, inheritance or surrogacy.

A beautiful woman need not use makeup or dress in flamboyant, flattering garments to become so-she simply is- no more than a powerful woman needs to find authority through social positions of status or economic sway. The most pathetically weak individuals are often those that, when stripped of their labels, acquisitions and status, have nothing else left to be proud of. Powerlessness can always be recognized by how it tries to acquire control through external sources where personal incapacity is filled by institutional or symbolic strength; the weaker the individual, the uglier the person, the simpler the mind, the more it looks for substitutions for inner power and beauty.

But she needs none of this, others just gravitate to her they sense her authenticity of spirit; they want to partake in it, rub against it, gain a bit of it through association or they fear it, loath it, despise its existence until they want to tear it down and defame it in public view. They feel threatened by it because it forces comparisons and its purity of force and ease of expression exasperates them.

But beauty can't be completely defined or mathematically measured; we feel it first and then search for the reasons why; we first acknowledge it as such and then we attempt to intellectualize and conceptualize it so that we may try to reproduce it.

The ancients understood beauty and its power, they tried to capture it and reproduce it using its external manifestations.

But how do you capture intrinsic beauty, how do you symbolize spiritual symmetry, how do you grasp strength of Will?
You can only symbolize it using outer impressions that attempt to define inner forces.

What is beauty?

He walks into a room and makes no first impressions of note. He resembles the common man to the extent that he can blend into the throng and get lost in the multitude.

But spend enough time in his presence and he unfolds the wonderment of his being to you. Slowly but surely you begin deferring to him, you seek his approval, his agreement, his friendship, his love.

It happens unconsciously and while you are offering opinions on a multiplicity of subject matter and trying to resist him, your eyes drift his way, they seek out his, looking for reaction, looking for consent, looking for communion.

He doesn't always speak honestly, often being bored by the simplicity of the world or the opinions trying to encompass it, but when he does he sets a standard to be reached and reveals a perspective that can be ignored and/or opposed but not completely denied.

He is beautiful in the one way that matters, for a beautiful spirit can result in symmetry of form but symmetry of form doesn't always hint at spirit.
He is threatening, even though he may be oblivious to it most of the time. He sucks energy out of a room until there's little left-over to be shared; he draws attention unexpectedly, when at first he is ignored, and even those that despise him for it, unwillingly measure themselves against him and unconsciously try to flatter themselves by tearing him down.

The shadows are his preference, from here he can be himself, but the spotlight is often his unavoidable and uncomfortable destiny.

What is beauty?

I've caught a glimpse of it in dying sunlight or through canopied forest paths, when the shadows are cast just right, or in gentle early-morning snowfalls right before the dawn.

I've caught a passing resonance of it in euphonious melody and in the angry tension of a driving tune or in the vocal reverberations of someone dear to me, that lingers long after they are gone, or in the unexpected rising of a summer breeze rustling through the grass after a spring shower.

I've caught a hint of it through the gentle traces of a tender caress, in the smooth aftertaste of wine and a loving genuine kiss or in a subtle scent wafted up from hidden sources that brings back a memory of a time, a place or a person you've forgotten.

In those moments, of perceptive clarity, I've enjoyed the transcending truth of my existence and I've rejoiced, lost for a while in sensation, with the soft strumming of intuition upon my mind.

But there are two types of beauty, as there are two types of power:
One is attained through artificial means; it is inherited and adorned like finery but never truly possessed.

Like a policeman out of uniform, a priest with no collar, a wealthy man made suddenly poor again or a beauty-queen cleansed from all the exaggerating affects of wardrobe, paint and shadowing, their power/beauty rests on external sources and facades of institutional symbolism and well crafted imaging. They are usually the ones that, when talking about themselves, always talk about things and objects and symbols; they distract you from the self with external attire and all the stuff they wrap themselves in and hide behind.

A scientist will mention his credentials in the attempt to gain the intellectual credibility and respect he lacks in personally, a police officer will use his uniform and gun to achieve institutional empowerment to compensate for personal feebleness, a wealthy man will use his acquisitions and monetary sway to achieve distinction and a sense of well-being out of reach from him in every other way, a woman may use surgical enhancements, good grooming or the illusionary effects of clothing and cosmetics to hide her plainness or inner ugliness, a man will use large muscles and a well defined physique to overcompensate for intellectual or psychological weakness, a priest will use his collar and station to insinuate piety and spirituality where there is none, a common man may use his career and his social position of authority and community ties to excuse his own simplicity of thought and total conformity with and commitment to the norms.

The second type is derived from the very essence of a persons being. It isn't bought or learned it is the very fabric of its existence, expressed naturally and with little effort and so with even less conscious awareness, just like a beautiful sunset.

This is why it is detestable to the many, awe inspiring to the few and threatening to the insecure and fearful.

What is beauty?

It has been said that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and that it is an evolutionary process by which the mind, through psychology and genetic predisposition, recognizes what is worthy of its attentions and how one distinguishes the healthy from the ill.

It has also been said that beauty is power -although it could, more accurately, be restated that it is power that is beauty- as it is an inexorable manifestation of a notable convergence of strength and health within a single entity/phenomenon in space/time.

Even if it is so, this still does not take away from the profound impact it has on human thought. Nobody can ignore the effects of harmony, symmetry and order upon the human mind; no amount of deconstruction and rationalization can minimize its influence. In a universe with so little of it, every instance draws us to it and imposes itself into our reality. We look for it, we covet and envy it and we aspire to and are inspired by it.

I don't know what beauty is, the closest I've come to defining it is as an expression of order and harmony in a universe of chaos and disharmony that comes across as eloquence, symmetry and grace that leaves us breathless.

We all want to know that when we lie on our deathbed and we prepare to be taken back to the oblivion that birthed us, we might have, for at least once in our lives, perceived a particle of it so that we can hold onto its memory, as we drift away; a memory to savour in the void, a singular instance of definitiveness in a universe of uncertainty and then, perhaps, our lives would not have been all in vain.