Spotlight Writing Contest #1 = "THE TRAP OF BEAUTY" (Original Article)

This is a very important, sensitive and controversial issue which is not even considered an issue at all right now. But I need to raise my voice today as it is effecting a lot of people, when actually, it is not worthy to gain so much importance !!

How it began?

I have been a victim of this trap of beauty and I believe, each and every person have been through this. In fact, looks are such an important criteria that it is always on a person's mind, after their childhood is left behind. We never cared for our looks when we were small. Did we? But now, every time we go outside, every time we see the opposite gender around, we start adjusting our hair and beard and even our expressions. I remember when I was in school and when I realized that looks matter a lot, I spent many hours in front of the mirror analyzing how I look when I smile, laugh, get angry, weep etc etc etc. I don't know if you also have done it ever but yeah I did it. I did it so that next time when I be in front of people, I can choose what expression should I express.

Isn't this f**king stupid !!! Well, not my fault. Not yours either if you did anything similar. Bollywood is the main culprit I would say, and the next in the list is our SOCIETY. They pierced it in our mind that the one who looks good is the HERO of the movie, and we all want ourselves to be that hero. What we forget is that we already are, no matter how we look.

What and whom is actually beautiful?

Now, when I came to realize it recently, that beauty is such a useless thing to be discriminated upon, I stopped caring about how I look to others and what it did is unbelievable. It boosted my confidence so much that more people started getting attracted towards me. I realized how I was changing their definitions of beauty without them even knowing about it. They were finding me more beautiful when now, I was not flaunting my hair, not keeping a check on my expressions and laughed frankly without any hesitations. I found out that beauty is not in things outside, beauty is always in our perspective. And if our perspective can make everything beautiful then why to change the things outside. We should change it inside so that everything we look at, seems beautiful to us. Isn't it ?

It's the mind's fault after all !

Discriminating anything on the basis of caste, religion, race, color is considered racism !! I think the concept of beauty is very much similar and should be added to the list. We should stop calling anyone or anything beautiful as it automatically creates a difference between things in our mind. This mind is the real culprit here and what it only needs is treatment. Otherwise, things are already beautiful. Aren't they?

Can you declare something to be universally beautiful ?

I could agree on distinguishing man, woman and other things on the basis of their beauty if and only if this distinction was universal. If everyone agreed upon somebody to be beautiful, if a youtube video exists with no single dislike, if all of us had the same opinion. Can it happen? Of course not. This is the biggest proof that beauty is just an opinion RIGHT NOW. Beauty is just a perspective right now, and not a TRUTH, right now. We need to understand that beauty is the truth and not an opinion and then we would start looking for something that is beautiful in everybody !! We would start accepting, that beauty is a truth and not an object of discrimination. We would start looking for beauty, even in the ugly ones.

The temporary trust !

We trust our opinions for this discrimination. I mean seriously ? OPINIONS ? Which are so impermanent, which are different as per every person ? How can we trust something which is so impermanent. Is there a thing called temporary trust in the world? LOL.

Image source

We should learn it from the kids :-

This trap of beauty doesn't seem to be that necessary to be cared upon. Isn't it? But let me tell you now how it is effecting our lives. As I mentioned it in the beginning, kids don't take care of how they look. God sends kids to make us understand THINGS and what we do is make our kids understand things. As we grow, we soon make our looks so important and those who fall in the category of ugly, ever wondered the pain they pass through every day? That feeling of rejection everywhere they go, that feeling of giving up on gaining attention, that loss of hope to ever feel appreciated. All their lives they face rejection when they don't even know what their fault actually is? How cruel we are to reject God's creation, no matter how it looks.

Feeding the ego :-

Next comes the beautiful people now !! Some of them build their egos to a great extend when called beautiful continuously. Ego destroys people, and we are indirectly a reason to build it in others. Aren't we? Of course some people can fight their ego but those cases are exceptional. We can always blame each other because there is always some mistakes done by both the parties. Let us instead blame and improve ourselves. We play a part in building their egos and it's high time now. Accept it, so that you can now change it.

Not just ugly, but the beautiful are also suffering :-

Other times, there are cases when some people are always called beautiful and their other qualities are completely rejected. In fact what happens is that even if they get successful in any phase of their lives, their appearance is held responsible for it. It happens more with girls. Their continuous promotion in the office is judged as a flaw in her character. Am I wrong? Well, ladies know it !!! Sometimes I get fed up listening to how beautiful I am, I feel my other qualities, talents and efforts are going all in vain? Nobody gives a s**t about anything else except how I look? Well I am a positive person, so I deal with it but yes it is an important point because no one would ever imagine that a good looking person can also feel not so good about their looks.

Who are we to judge and declare who is beautiful and who is not ?

We are no one to judge people by their appearances. We were not given any certificate, responsibility or authority for doing so!! In fact, contests like Ms. Universe , don't allow girls with a height below their fixed criteria. If they want to select Ms. World or Ms. Universe, why and how is "height" a valid point to screen them out? What even is happening in this world? If you ever had complimented anybody beautiful or called someone ugly, then let me ask you on what basis did you do it? On the basis of their color? Or on the basis of the placement of their features? Size of assets? Height? Skinny or chubby? What explanation do you have of - "the beautiful"? What base do you carry to distinguish upon? And even if you have some explanation, based on your opinions or a bunch of people's opinion, what right do you have to give that explanation? Who made you the judge? No one ! Then how can you state it? If you still think your criteria to CALCULATE the beautiful is valid somehow, let me tell you that you need to be certified by God to tell someone that they are either beautiful or ugly, which hereby states that no one ever had or will have the right to say so ever !!

Do you love the beautiful? Quite hilarious again !!

And now, the worst is that love is also somehow pulled and bathed in this garbage. I have seen people falling in "so called love" with each other because they think that the other person is beautiful. People say it to me also that "you look beautiful and I love you" !!! What does it even mean? That they will leave when they will find someone more beautiful? Because obviously, I am not the most beautiful girl on the planet. So one should never ever trust somebody who loves you for your prettiness!! There is always someone more beautiful than you, so you should not feed your ego when someone calls you beautiful.

CONCLUSION

After this awakening, I stopped getting egoistic when people called me beautiful, because obviously it was not about me, but THEIR perspective. But here comes the controversy, how would you identify whether that person is talking about the beauty which he finds in everything, or THAT beauty, on which he discriminates between the ugly and the beauty. Here, you should also understand that I am not against beauty, but against the trap it is creating. I appreciate beauty, but in a different manner. I appreciate beauty in everything, even in the "ugly" unlike other people who also appreciate beauty but they also reject the ugly on the other hand. It is somewhat like I do believe in GOD, but I don't believe in its statues and temples or churches. People might call me an atheist if I don't respect the statues and fold my hands in front of it or pray to a clay toy, but in reality I believe in that GOD, which is the real one. That's what I am saying here. I don't say that stop calling people, things, and places beautiful because you are discriminating, I say that stop calling people, things and places beautiful because you first need to unlearn the definition of beauty and then re-learn it. After that, when you will call something beautiful, you would not discriminate. Instead, you will learn to appreciate.

Call for the sleeping ones :-

Some people still might think that okay, I don't have an answer to whatever is written in this article, but I would still consider some things beautiful then others, and I would still fall and crave to GET the beautiful. Well, let me tell you that if you fall amongst this category, then you are extremely controlled by your mind, whereas the mind and body was given to your soul to take control of and create wonders. What instead is happening in the world is that the mind is controlling the body, and the soul is actually still sleeping inside. Though it tries to wake up, speak to you but it is always ignored as we never listen to the voice coming from inside, but to the voice coming from outside! It is time to realize the truth and open our eyes, wake up and realize that yes, what we are doing is incorrect and is not required, is harming people and so the early you clear it and fix in your mind, the better !! Even if you think that my actions won't matter and I will continue doing what I was doing, then I must inform you that there was one person who did the same many years back and their kids learned it from him and it kept on spreading and now became a very common thing to the society. I know we can not change the world, and that is not even required. Our existence would still serve a purpose if we are able to change even a bunch of people around us. Even if you succeed in changing yourself, that would be one great achievement as well !!

Let's end it now :-

So ultimately, I hope you understood my motive here. I am not criticizing the beautiful , I am focusing on this false impression of the "meaning of beauty" in our mindset which comes along with another false impression hand in hand that "defines the meaning of ugly". It is very important that we stop doin this and change our definitions because it harms people who did nothing wrong and it effects the whole shaping up of their life. We all indirecctly share a part in this misconduct as we are also a part of the society. As I said it once in my poetry, I will end this article with those lines :-

Let us not crave,
TO BE, TO GET, TO SEE, the most BEAUTIFUL,
Let us understand that there is nothing repugnant in the world,
and everything is already BEAUTIFUL.

---

Here is the link to the contest if anybody else wants to participate :) :- https://steemit.com/spotlight/@spotlight/spotlight-writing-contest-1-join-in-for-a-chance-to-win-10k-steem-power-for-1-week

---

Hey, need your support to win this contest. If you think my article is worth winning then kindly comment - "VOTE" on my commented link below the contest post. Here is the link to my comment :- https://steemit.com/spotlight/@spotlight/spotlight-writing-contest-1-join-in-for-a-chance-to-win-10k-steem-power-for-1-week#@himshweta/re-spotlight-spotlight-writing-contest-1-join-in-for-a-chance-to-win-10k-steem-power-for-1-week-20170827t181443324z. Kindly find my comment there and comment "VOTE" below my comment, not here below this post.

Thank you so much for giving it a read even if you don't commented there. Make a great day ahead.