Final Draft

before you read

i need a good spell check moms computer didn't have it so please bear with me


While interviewing the people around me, the common answers were those that would justify their present situation. The questions I asked were "what is meaning?", "how meaningful is your life?", and "what is beauty?". I got various answers but most were characterized by a lack of thought. But over all, I thought it was interesting and helped the person realize aspects about their life that they overlook.

Then I asked people about their idea of beauty. Asking this question would help me find what they valued. I was inspired to ask this when I heard on the radio how quickly evolution can happen. Women in Romania could grow full mustaches because the men there found women with mustaches to be more beautiful for what ever reason. So I thought about every one else. Would there be a pattern like there is in Romania? Would it be a favorite color, or a flower, or something? So I asked my cousin first and he said “Ian, what is beautiful is very simple.. a fat ass.” I was very disappointed with this and thought it was a not a thought out answer so I asked again... I posed the question in a different way: “Well, why is a fat ass beautiful and what if a rhino or a chicken had a fat ass would that make it beautiful?” He said it is always “in the eye of the beholder and yes, those animals would be beautiful. Ian, how can one not like a fat ass?”

What struck me was that he said everyone has their own taste but it is weird for me to think differently than him. Basically, he has a strict idea of beauty and that every one else is wrong but he will tolerate them. This connects to my idea that most people will make what they like more beautiful or meaningful because they like it and want to be right.

Another person I asked was my little brother and he said that beauty was our city. So, I asked further clarifying questions like "what make makes it nice?". Through talking to him, he was able to narrow the most beautiful traits about the city to the "peace" and "security". He feels the city has peace between people. So I asked “how about just 'peace' in general? Is that beautiful to you?” he said “yeah and I like dads neighborhood.”
Our dad lives in the north Bronx where the Botanical gardens are. He added that “nothing is dramatically changing and that every thing is the same. I think.” So I thought my brother likes his environment to be like really smooth glass and any imperfections on the glass would stand out and he wouldn’t like it. I was able to understand that Eric finds beauty in the places he can consider home.

The last person I asked this question to was a man in union square who I know little about. He was smoking a a cigarette on the bench when I asked him for his definition of "beauty". I was surprised since he was so short with me. So I asked him what aesthetically pleases him. He looked puzzled and seemed to be in deep thought. Then I took the pressure off him by saying "how about just knowing it when you see it?" and he nodded, relieved and said "yeah that's cool." So then I asked him how meaningful he felt his life was, and he replied with a "7", one of the lowest numbers I had heard someone rate. I decided I wouldn't keep him any longer, so I shook his hand. His handshake was pretty weak. I could tell he did not think very highly of himself and also he was unsure of where he stood in all aspects of his life. His idea of beauty was not firmly established because he is unsure about his own meaning. He is an example of how meaningfulness and beauty are linked at their cores.

I have found that beauty is highly subjective but is also derived from individual values, sense of worth, and a person's relative meaning. That is why there is no accurate, uniform definition for beauty, since it is only validated by an individual perspective.