When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness.
When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil.
-Lao-tzu
Well. I know what this post was originally going to be about, before I started googling for that quote that I saw in a book once. It was originally going to be about my teeth. Yes. Very exciting.
Well. I am going to be getting braces around February/March time. I know my teeth don't look too bad, I hardly notice them myself anymore. But they are terribly crooked. The braces are more to improve the functionality than the aestheticism. So yeah, I thought I'd blog about that, but I can now see that it's kind of pathetic in the wake of the quote I was looking for to head it up.
So. Back to the quote. "When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil." Opposites are purely a human invention, aren't they? John Marsden touches on this in his Tomorrow series, which are fantastic by the way, you should read them. "Nature knows no opposites." He says. And isn't it true? To use his example, if a dragonfly is eating a mosquito, he is simply surviving, filling his belly so he can live a bit longer. He is unaware of the mosquito's suffering as he fights for his life and is devoured painfully bit by bit. We would call the dragonfly evil because he is doing that to the mosquito. But are people who kill accidentally evil? The dragonfly is doing the same thing. He is just eating. Are we evil because we kill plants and animals to survive? "When they all know good as good, There arises the recognition of evil"
What about beauty? "When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness." Isn't this also true? If we all looked the same, we would not recognise either in people, I don't think. But because we recognise these stick-thin models as beautiful, we recognise those healthy-sized, vibrant women as ugly. Because our recognition of beauty is becoming increasingly narrower, how long will it be until we consider the whole human race as ugly? Cast aside this image, look at it honestly- Are they really ugly, or do they just differ from the media-recognised image of beauty?
That is very well put however you are generalising slightly. I was going to say some of us but I can only speak from personal opinion so I admit I was about to generalise as well. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I don't see beauty from the eyes of the media, I certainly don't see layers and layers of make-up as beautiful but I don't see it as being ugly either. It's just a personal choice. Everybody has beauty in one way or another but I do look at concrete buildings and think. 'Ah thats the ugliest thing I've ever seen'
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