There is an enormous amount of beauty in the world. People, distant places, our homes, a painting we bought, someone’s character, spoken words, a song, a line in a movie… The list goes on, and on.
There is a vast amount of overlap in what I find beautiful, and what you find beautiful. If you and I were to begin to list off what we both find beautiful, we’d have somewhat of a Venn diagram of things that we both find attractive, and things that we independently find attractive. Thus, all the things that are beautiful to me, might not be beautiful to you. The overlapping list could be large, or small. It comes down to what we find attractive.
And that’s kind of rad.
Psychologists have studied the human mind for centuries. The human brain is astounding and allows us to learn, remember things, tap into emotions, hear things, process information, block out bad memories, feel things, and see the bad and the beauty of the world. MRI’s allow researchers to see a literal picture of the brain. Technology like this can show how the brain reacts to certain things as well as reveal any medical abnormalities that could be life threatening. It’s literally mind blowing. The advances in technology and science are phenomenal.
The truth is, we’re all really not that different. Sure, we look different, but we all have a lot of the same basic functions and needs in order to survive.
But what’s even more interesting, is that the way we acquire, process, and store information might be similar, but the end result of what we find important or better yet attractive, is different.
I was reading an article on BBC today that dove into why we are drawn to certain people and not others. If you’re keen to check it out, you can find the article here. The article lists out five different factors outlined by Dr Claire Hart, a psychology professor at the University of Southampton, that contribute to what humans find attractive:
Proximity
Similarity
Reciprocity
Physical Attractiveness
Familiarity
She goes on to talk about how all of these factors are typically linked in some way. For example, you might be attracted to someone who is similar to you, and feels familiar as they evoke a sense of comfortability that reminds you of someone you admired as a child.
Another example could be that you find someone attractive because of their physical appearance, but since they are not in close proximity to you (i.e. long distance) they might not be as attractive to you due a rationalization you’ve subconsciously formed preventing you from really “liking” them. Or, on the opposite side, you could find them more attractive because you’re subconsciously afraid of losing your independence, so dating someone long distance could be attractive to you.
And I believe that all these factors come from a place of nurture and nature.
But let me be more specific.
When I refer to nature, I lean on the Psychoanalysis approach, our innate drives of sex and aggression and our social upbringing during childhood.
When I refer to nurture, I refer to Humanism and Behaviorism. Humanism describing basic needs and how society influences a person’s self concept. Behaviorism explaining how our environment has conditioned us.
It's a scale, really.
While our environmental factors contribute to what we find attractive, so do our sex drives. And vice versa.
Which brings me back to what we find beautiful in another human being. Beauty isn’t just surface level, it’s also about what factors make something beautiful.
Much of society, and I’ll be the first one to admit I do this sometimes, uses appearance as the number one judge of attractiveness.
Recently, I went back and looked at a few of my college essays and stumbled upon a summary I had written of the poem “Still to be neat, still to be dressed” by Ben Jonson. The sarcastic poem written about the surface level beauty of a woman.
Still to be neat, still to be dressed,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed;
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th'adulteries of art.
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Written in the year 1609, the context of the poem reflects a period of time that was engulfed by the need for a woman, or man, to appear attractive and embody a sense of poised beauty and artificial charm.
Since then, humans have constantly been threatened with the media, community, gossip, and obscene ideals as to what is perceived as “beautiful”. Women in particular, have been heavily pressured to be thin, gorgeous, but also have curves. In the 60’s the beauty icon was Twiggy, a British model turned-actress, then singer, who essentially made looking skinny “inny”. The list of body fads goes on and on if you dig into a bit of history on the fashion industry.
But what I find most interesting about Ben Jonson’s poem is the sarcastic tone. Jonson wrote the entire poem mocking surface level beauty, and while the woman he described appeared to be beautiful, she was not attractive to his heart.
Inner beauty and self-esteem are incredibly important when it comes to the beauty aspect in a person’s mind.
You see, after we’ve checked the hypothetical box of attractiveness by appearance, we then look to understand if we find their personality attractive: their habits, their dislikes/likes, their drives, what they want out of life, and so forth. So our perception of labeling someone beautiful, if we are aligned with these personality traits, grows even larger. We find them even more appealing and beautiful than what we saw at surface level.
The same thing can be said for an experience. While something, a place or a painting, might be beautiful to the eyes - the context behind that thing makes it even more valuable and beautiful.
I have a painting in my apartment that I bought in Costa Rica in 2017 from a local artist right outside of the town where I was staying. At first glance, the gorgeous painting matched the style of art that I collect from local artists each time I go abroad, thus it was appealing to me. But when I started speaking to the artist he described how important his art was to him. How painting fulfilled his passion and brought food to the table for his family. He talked about the specific time of day the landscape was that he portrayed in his piece and the detail in the strokes. After hearing that level of detail, I was taken aback by just how beautiful that piece of artwork really turned out to be.
In 2015 I went abroad to Greece to study in school. During that time a group of us were challenged to bungee jump off a bridge that went across the Corinth Canal. Sure, the water was beautiful, and if you haven’t yet googled just how gorgeous it is, here’s a photo I took that day…
But what made that experience beautiful to me was the exercise my guide had us do prior to jumping. She had us focus on one thing that we wanted to let go, and in the moment that we jumped this would become our metaphorical moment in which we began to truly let go of that "thing". I wont go into specifics of what I decided to let go that day, but in the moments where I was soaring through the air, my legs attached to a bungee cord, I felt so free and there was profound beauty in that. Sitting at the end of the bungee cord and being pulled up to the top of the bridge was incredible too. There was silence. A beautiful, peaceful silence.
(And yes, before I jumped I was absolutely terrified, you can watch the video HERE)
So I think it's safe to say that beauty isn’t only outside, it’s what’s within and around.
Everyone wants to be called beautiful. But what I've found to be more meaningful is when someone truly sees you for you, not just your appearance, and then says those words.
The most gorgeous part of this whole thing is that beauty is subjective. Much like art. The experiences, things, and humans that I find attractive might not be beautiful to you, and that’s completely fine. In fact, I welcome it. It’s why my favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry, and yours might be chocolate.
Hayley, you define beauty to me. But that's just how I define it!