The Quandary of Aesthetics

I had an epiphany of sorts the other day, and I am still trying to figure out. This is the problem with these conundrums I burden my mind with, there really is no clear answers. Then again, when are there ever clear answers? Life would be way too simple and uncomplicated then. We would be living in a supreficial utopia of sorts.. Alas.. I digress...

The point I was going to discuss today deals with society's inherent infatuation with the idea of beauty. I am sure that our creator designed us genetically to have some inherent perceptions of beauty but the rest, I'm sure, is learned. What really makes beauty then? For a culture such as ours, this is most propagated by the media. In my opnion, this is of course the worse form to base said judgement. The media is a lie to the regular average joe. It makes us want to strive to always be better despite the fact that we, are of course, beautiful the way that we were made out to be. Now that sounded really cheesy, and of course, some people are born disfigured in some manner or form. Yet, I am a firm believer in the fact that whatever god there is up there, closes a door in one manner, but opens in another. This life is a test, and thus whateve precarious situation we may be in, we must live our lives to best of our ability. Yet again... I digress...

My biggest qualm has to do with the idea of plastic surgery. Plastic surgery has now become a very profitable business. Normal people as well as celebrities are shelling big bucks just to look "beautiful." How is beauty defined in that manner? You're selling yourself short, and taking the easy way out to make yourself "beautiful," when in reality, hell, you look more like Frankenstein. Even worse is you risk your health. How many botched plastic surgeries have there been? How many lawsuits have been made? I would like to bet millions. There is no easy way out in life, and how is selling yourself short a way to do so? I'm not going to lie and say that I am against all forms of plastic surgery, but if it is elective, then yes, I am firmly against that idea. If some poor soul got in a horrendous accident, thus needing plastic surgery to fully recover, then yes, I would not oppose the idea.

The media has to blame for all of this. It allows us to believe this fallacies about what beauty truly is. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so they say. I guess that is something that I believe in as well. Conceptions of beauty are never ephemeral. It varies between culture and culture, time and space. I wonder how universal ideologies of beauty is really. In any event, beauty in a western country is highly distorted. These conceptions of what is "thin" and what is "beautiful" or blown way out of proportion. As we all know, this is the premise for many of those eating disorders that plague our country as well as the world. Think of it this way, you should be so lucky to live the way you are, and be who you are. There are plenty of children around the world, starving, disease ridden, and dying. What are you to complain about? Has our shallowness really gotten the best of us? Has our infatuation with beauty really become this shallow and wreckless?