The Search For Beauty
What is real beauty? Where can we find it? In a world full of visual distractions, where can we reveal beauty?
Everyone will have their own take on what is beautiful. A summer sunset. A rose. A diamond engagement ring. Some find beauty in other people, places, or even memories. There are many mixed messages in society that can redefine the meaning or idea of beauty. One of those messages is advertising.
Advertising has always set the tone for what is beautiful. Your average magazine or newspaper ad is where you see perfectly chiseled female or male bodies in some insanely expensive outfit from a company whose logo you can recognize blind folded. We know people don't actually look like that, but deep down inside I think most of us would like to. Subliminally we are affected by these types of images in advertising and we even tend to buy products from those companies in order to adhere to ‘the look’. Millions of products are sold daily to style us into a look that is suitable to us. Billions of dollars are spent yearly on products and services used to enhance beauty. The make-up and clothing industries alone can bring a style-starving consumer to their knees. People everyday are trying to upgrade their ‘image’ or ‘look’ using countless products and accessories. Is beauty really found through these things? Can products from CK or Victoria's Secret really make you beautiful? Can that expensive car or house make you beautiful? Can money make you beautiful?
Questions like this have been asked throughout time and the search goes on. People, no matter where they’re from or how they were raised, are searching for some sort of beautiful thing – something to fill the gap in their lives which makes everything seem better.
For me, real beauty comes in many forms of perception through our senses, not just vision. Vision is the most dominant of senses and can be overestimated. Real beauty can encompass great experiences in our lives. It comes through a feeling, a sound, a touch, a taste, or a smell. It is in nature itself, in the trees, the distant, rolling meadows, or in the sparkle of the stars on a cool summer night. It's the melodic song of birds in the morning or the rippling of water down a woodland stream. It's the smell of steak on the grill, and the long awaited taste of it once it is cooked perfectly to your preference. It comes from other people; not particularly how the dress or how they look, but how they act and who they are as people. It is the comforting advice of a grandfather or close friend who would throw themselves in front of a bus for you. It comes from animals - that undying companionship of a dog, or the gracious purr of a cat at dinner time. It is the feeling one gets after a great job interview, and a phone call (or Facebook connection) from a long lost friend. It can be appreciated through art, music or a well written play or movie. It is that first kiss on a date. It is love; all of the feelings we experience with it, and all of our expectations, hopes, and dreams. It is the last goodbye to a dying family member, as well as the wonderous gaze of a newborn child.
Beauty can be hard to find. We struggle to find what we want, and may forget to stop and realize what we have. What does beauty mean to you? It is out there, can you find it?
Everyone will have their own take on what is beautiful. A summer sunset. A rose. A diamond engagement ring. Some find beauty in other people, places, or even memories. There are many mixed messages in society that can redefine the meaning or idea of beauty. One of those messages is advertising.
Advertising has always set the tone for what is beautiful. Your average magazine or newspaper ad is where you see perfectly chiseled female or male bodies in some insanely expensive outfit from a company whose logo you can recognize blind folded. We know people don't actually look like that, but deep down inside I think most of us would like to. Subliminally we are affected by these types of images in advertising and we even tend to buy products from those companies in order to adhere to ‘the look’. Millions of products are sold daily to style us into a look that is suitable to us. Billions of dollars are spent yearly on products and services used to enhance beauty. The make-up and clothing industries alone can bring a style-starving consumer to their knees. People everyday are trying to upgrade their ‘image’ or ‘look’ using countless products and accessories. Is beauty really found through these things? Can products from CK or Victoria's Secret really make you beautiful? Can that expensive car or house make you beautiful? Can money make you beautiful?
Questions like this have been asked throughout time and the search goes on. People, no matter where they’re from or how they were raised, are searching for some sort of beautiful thing – something to fill the gap in their lives which makes everything seem better.
For me, real beauty comes in many forms of perception through our senses, not just vision. Vision is the most dominant of senses and can be overestimated. Real beauty can encompass great experiences in our lives. It comes through a feeling, a sound, a touch, a taste, or a smell. It is in nature itself, in the trees, the distant, rolling meadows, or in the sparkle of the stars on a cool summer night. It's the melodic song of birds in the morning or the rippling of water down a woodland stream. It's the smell of steak on the grill, and the long awaited taste of it once it is cooked perfectly to your preference. It comes from other people; not particularly how the dress or how they look, but how they act and who they are as people. It is the comforting advice of a grandfather or close friend who would throw themselves in front of a bus for you. It comes from animals - that undying companionship of a dog, or the gracious purr of a cat at dinner time. It is the feeling one gets after a great job interview, and a phone call (or Facebook connection) from a long lost friend. It can be appreciated through art, music or a well written play or movie. It is that first kiss on a date. It is love; all of the feelings we experience with it, and all of our expectations, hopes, and dreams. It is the last goodbye to a dying family member, as well as the wonderous gaze of a newborn child.
Beauty can be hard to find. We struggle to find what we want, and may forget to stop and realize what we have. What does beauty mean to you? It is out there, can you find it?
I'm so mad - I just left a long comment and it didn't take. Here's the brief version...
ReplyDeleteI like the subject here- I just wish it went in to more detail. Who's defining beauty? Why do high end ads focus on beauty over product placement? What has been the effect of these ads, culturally speaking?
Also - the blog did not recognize if you put spaces between paragraphs, so you may want to consider indenting your paragraphs in the future.
Lastly, I think the organization and flow of this post was wonderful. You picked a subject people are familiar with, presented it, questioned it, and then offered a new outlook.
Great start!
It is difficult to write about abstractions like love and beauty. You do a decent job here, but the more concrete your examples, the better it is for the reader.
ReplyDeleteDiscuss specific ads or specific marketing ideas that have gone from groundbreaking to formula. Look at specific examples of beauty over the years. Give us something to grasp, not just ethereal ideas. Remember that Mississippi mud.
The eye of the beholder, real beauty is on the inside, and stopping to smell the roses are all clichés. Clichés are phrases so ubiquitous that their original impact is lost. They were once clever and now they are so boring we barely read them. They can be occasionally useful as stereotypes if you want to break stereotypes elsewhere. But three is too many for one piece, especially if you are just using them as they have always been used.
Real beauty strikes you. It startles you. So how could it ever be the cliché?
You should put a space between your paragraphs. Then you should put more breaks in the paragraphs you have already. Let your sentences breathe and stand alone. Don’t let any underdeveloped or poor sentences hide in a big block of text. Give each of them their moment and let them be substantial or die away.
With advertising the way it is these days…
The way it is these days? I’m not inside your head and I may not agree with you. Spell out for me how you see advertising these days.
Usually, we can all assume, people dont actually look like that but deep down inside I think most of us would like to look like it.
People are not supermodels, but they want to look like supermodels.
Yeah, so?
Finding it can be easy or difficult depending on where you look for it and what it means to you.
That sentence says absolutely nothing.
You are still searching for what you want to say about beauty Drake. That is an important type of writing, using the process to discover your thoughts. It’s not the final draft that you want to publish; it is the thinking beforehand.
You are not done with beauty. Keep writing about it.
Keep writing about it until you reread one of your sentences and it startles you.
The subject matter is interesting, and I think that this piece was generally well written. But I do have a few observations, which I hope you will take in the creative, constructive spirit that they were given.
ReplyDeleteI’ll start first with the opening. I was always taught to use questions sparingly in ledes of stories (because they are often seen as extraneous). Yours has four. For some readers that may be four too many. (You even end with a question.)
I think you could have begun this piece by jumping, say, to the third graf, and maybe crafting something like this:
The average ad in your glossy magazine features perfectly chiseled men and women, their high cheekbones, flawless noses and sinewy bodies serve as human canvases for the $6,000 Burberry Prorsum coats or $10,000 Ralph Lauren tweed riding jackets featured on the pages.
Is this beauty? Madison Avenue would like you to think so. Then go from here …
Which brings me to the next observation. I would have liked to have seen specific examples in the story, like the ones I made up in the lede. Beauty is so abstract, but people can envision details – like buff bodies or expensive clothes.
Same thing with this graf: “For me, real beauty comes from within and encompasses many levels of perception.” It’s a nice thought, but you might want to “show” the reader what you mean, not just say it. Maybe something like: “For me, beauty is the feeling I get when I watch my newborn son sleeping peacefully in his crib, or as I watch the sun rising over the cityscape. Other times beauty is more fleeting. I might not know it until I see it ...”