Define: Beauty.

We are constantly surrounded by it, but do we recognize it?  Beauty.  A word most commonly associated with appearance. It is often said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.  But beauty is more complex than a simple definition of “looking good”.  Beauty is something so personal and so refined that there is no strict definition for such a word.  Though many words come to mind to define beauty, I have narrowed my definition into three words.  Beauty is love, pleasure and significance. 

            Beauty is based on perspective, while love shapes a person’s perspective.For example, a mother will love her child because it is hers.  The child may be ugly or possibly have a deformity, but because of the love she has for her child, he or she is beautiful to the mother.  Or for instance, the love a farmer has for the horse that has devoted its life to plowing the fields year after year.  And even though the horse’s back is swayed and its coat has become raged, the farmer still sees him as a beautiful stallion.  Love has the power to make anything beautiful.

            Everyone feels pleasure. Pleasure comes in many shapes and sizes.  To some, it is the satisfying taste of chocolate cake for breakfast and for another it could be the passing grade on one of Mr. Hurd’s Government tests.  Beauty is pleasure. Now I am not saying that chocolate cake is beautiful necessarily but the feelings that one feels inside when that morsel of chocolate goodness is devoured is beauty.  Martin Luther, a German Priest and scholar in the early 1500s said, “Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.”   Every person has something or someone that brings him or her pleasure.  While some delight in music, others may delight in the words of a book.  When one finds pleasure in life, the result is beauty.

            We are all individual.  Our differences make us beautiful.  What is significant and important to one may be an overlooked attribute to another.  For a city slicker who never sees the night sky because of the smog and pollution, stars are a rarity.  What he sees is the heavens opening up and a glimpse of the beautiful specks of light that seep through the cracks, while those from the country merely don’t see any significance in the night sky at all.  Or for those that live in the desert, who only see rain twice a year.  Grey rain clouds forming and drops of rain sprinkling their fields could be treasured and beautiful to these desert dwellers.   It is a shame that the beauties around us are overlooked because they are a natural occurrence.  Beauty is the significance that one finds in the rarities. 

            Novels could be written on the definition of beauty, and then throw in the opinions of people throughout the world and entire libraries could be filled with books just about beauty. But to state it simply beauty is love. Beauty is pleasure. Beauty is the significance that is seen through the “eyes of the beholder.”