Beauty is in the Heart of the Beholder

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A few words about the beauty within mirrors.

Most mirrors around the house are poor reflections on me.

That is, the harder and longer I gaze at myself in a mirror, the less I know exactly how I look to others, let alone to myself.

Just replacing a light fixture in the bathroom can make all romanticized images disappear—suddenly I see myself at high wattage, bereft of subdued shadings. Holy mackerel, where did all those blemishes come from, whence came the additional wrinkles and bags, how did I transmogrify overnight into a large prune with extra-long nose hair and unkempt blotches? When did I seriously begin to consider laving myself with pancake makeup, essentially to airbrush reality away from all undesirable features?

The mere act of cleaning the bathroom mirror can have the same effect.

Being a literary type, I search for solace among great works of literature:

“Am I beautiful? I think it must be the rose.

My hair–it only weighs me down.

My eyes–I only see with them.

My lips–they only help me to speak.

Of what use is it to be beautiful?”

–Spoken by the robot Helena in R.U.R. by Karel Capek

Helena must have looked into the wrong mirror the morning she spoke those words.

I know that I am not beautiful, but could it be that somebody, somewhere, under unusual circumstances, might consider someone like me to be beautiful? Again, what do my favorite authors say?

“Has any psychological experiment yielded

a more delightful suggestion than this one:

that there is a part of the mind without ambition

or information, which nonetheless is expert on what is beautiful?”
–Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I think I know what is beautiful, but how can I be sure that the red I see doesn’t come across as purple to you, that what I find repugnant might seem wonderful to you? I can’t see through your eyes.

As H.G. Wells once said, “Beauty is in the heart of the beholder.”

Karel, Kurt and H.G. are iconic literary figures, so, in the absence of any hard data concerning beauty, I must embrace their confusion and poetic ponderings. Must depend on the intrinsic and indefinable beauty that lurks here and there in great books…or in ornate mirrors…or in your heart

© 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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