Thursday, February 23, 2006

WHAT IS BEAUTY

What do you think of when you think of beauty?
For some men beauty is a gorgeous face with creamy smooth skin, shiny flowing Auburn hair and clear blue eye, or maybe it's a fiery red head with Alabaster skin and just a touch of freckles across her nose. Then again it could be the blonde with the dark tan and those long slender legs that go on forever.

What about the women? Is your dream man tall dark and handsome, slender and sleek, or perhaps for you it is the muscular and macho man that turns you on. Does he have a body like Adonis, eyes like Paul Newman and a face like -- hmmm what will his face look like?

In any case when we think of beauty, we think of the physical attraction. The perfect face the perfect hair, the perfect body. When a handsome man or a gorgeous woman walks by heads turn and envy surrounds them.

But what is beauty but a superficial thing and unless your name is 'Joan Rivers ' it won't last forever.
No matter how great the beauty if evil lurk within the beauty turns into ugliness. No matter how great the beauty, if the personality within is rude, controlling, selfish, conceded or arrogant, she ceases to be beautiful and becomes ugly to those around her. A nuisance . Someone that no one cares to be around, someone that is avoided, abonished, ignored at all cost .

True beauty is not a superficial thing, it comes from within. It is the friendliness, the kindness, the compassion, the humor the conversations without confrontation. It is someone who really listens when you talk and someone that you enjoy listening to. It is someone that makes you smile the minute you see them because their inner beauty shines through like the lantern in a lighthouse for all to see.

When I think of beauty I remember a lady much older then I at the time who was moderately tall and big boned and I might add with a good bit of weight around those bones . She had a face that most people would have called ugly, until you got to know her.
I think my husband knew her husband so she knew me by name. She chased me down in a store one day calling my name to catch my attention and shamefully I tried to avoid her, not because of her looks, but because I grew up in California and we're not as friendly with strangers as the people here in the south.
We don't care who lives in the apartment next door and care even less if pot is reeking out from around their closed door, so all I could think of was, oh lord what gossip does she want to inform me of, so I just kept scurrying up one isle and down the other.
Sadly my little short legs could not out run her big muscular legs and her age didn't seem to hold her up at all , she spun around that last isle like a deer on the run and I could no longer ignore the sound of my name being called so I turned and said hi how are you,with a big smile on my face.
She worked for the Cooperative Extension Service and wanted to tell me of a position they had open and thought I would be ideal for it. She wanted to help. I was busting my nuggies at night at the time waiting on tables for two dollars and fifty cents an hour and about two dollars worth of tips a night.
This was a part state part federally funded job. Good pay and good hours perfect for my school age children. A job that I could dress up to go to and use my brains instead of my feet.
I decided to go to that interview and got the job on the spot. I was in shock and happy as a lark.

Since she worked there too I was able to get to know her and occasionally we would have lunch together. The more I got to know her the more I liked her. Eventually we became good friends. She had a background I never would have guessed. She had been to college , taught school and had traveled some. There was no subject that she couldn't address. She was worldly, highly intelligent, extremely witty and loads of fun. She had a sense of humor you wouldn't believe,she kept me laughing over the worst things.

Funny isn't it, how you see people differently when you get to know them. When I got to know the person that she was, her looks disappeared and became beauty and I mean that with all of my heart.
I had the pleasure of being her co-worker for eleven years and her friend a few years longer after that. I looked foreword to seeing her warm and inviting smile. I looked foreword to hearing her voice and listening to her witty way of saying everything I looked foreword to our conversations. Sadly she passed away several years ago and I can't say that one month has gone by that I don't think of her. She was one of the most beautiful people I have ever met inside and out.
She truely left her mark with all who she met. Her light still shines in many hearts.

13 Comments:

Blogger Becky said...

It's always such a pleasure to meet someone like that.

It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies of all time, the classic black/white movie "Harvey"

In this movie Elwood told someone what his mother's dying words to him were, "she said, Elwood, there are two kinds of people in this world, there are people who are smart and there are people that are pleasant, well, I'd much rather be pleasant!" That stuck with me when I heard it, I try my best to be pleasant! I can only hope others can see me and do the same...

Sometimes just a big smile and a happy hello can brighten someone's day! It's amazing the power of a shining pleasant personality!

7:04 AM  
Blogger EXSENO said...

becky,
You are so right.

7:12 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I love your blog and fully agree. Ever since high school when an english teacher challenged me to define beauty, I've been intrigued by the concept. Beauty, aesthetics and humanism all work together in my opinion. I even had to write a grad school thesis on the subject. It's refreshing to read something as enlightening as your blog.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

8:20 AM  
Blogger EXSENO said...

JD,
Thank you for stopping by.
Come again any time. hehe Sorry but some how saying that to you kind of tickles me after taking a peek at you blog. Couldn't hang with it jd you'll give and old lady a heart attack.

8:56 AM  
Blogger David Stehle said...

"True beauty is not a superficial thing, it comes from within. It is the friendliness, the kindness, the compassion, the humor the conversations without confrontation. It is someone who really listens when you talk and someone that you enjoy listening to. It is someone that makes you smile the minute you see them because their inner beauty shines through like the lantern in a lighthouse for all to see."

Look at you getting all poetic over here. I like that part EXSENO. Well said and I agree. Beauty is only skin deep. Just like beauty from within can shine thru like a bright white light, so too can an inside ugliness.

Some people fret about their outside appearance, worry if they are attractive enough, when in all reality it is the inside they should be concerned with. It's inside where they are ugly and it's shinning thru no matter how much makeup they apply over it...hoping to conceal the light within.

1:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think beauty is defined more about how you treat a person then on how you look.
There is one individual that comes to my mind right now. He was the nicest man when it came to my daughter saying things she wanted to hear and promising her things but eventually the real person came out which was very ugly and hurtfull man. :(
Good post exseno. :)
56 chevyman

2:57 PM  
Blogger EXSENO said...

56chevyman,
Surprise I'm starting over.
Thanks for the compliment I'm glad that you enjoyed the post.

4:45 AM  
Blogger EXSENO said...

FAIR WARNING,
All of the nasty little bad comments about other people that were posted here have been deleted. I will no longer accept any of them, nor will I accept any more nasty little hints.

5:56 AM  
Blogger Id it is said...

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know, and all ye need to know".
John Keats
Honesty and truth do illume an individual with a beauty that sets them apart, just like the friend you mention.

1:23 PM  
Blogger EXSENO said...

Id it is,
Yes indeed it does.

2:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i really like the post, exseno... it's soo true...

sadly, not many people realize that...

12:07 PM  
Blogger mojoala said...

I've met a lot of people like that. And I've have met some people that were not so pretty on the inside.

Good darn post my friend.

1:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

True!! We should treasure such people.

3:56 AM  

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