What if . . .
What if it was me . . .
What if . . .
What if it was me he wanted . . .
Wanted to hold close. . .
In those empty arms. . .
Near a pounding heart . . .
Wrapped up so tight . . . ?
What if . . .
What if it was me he was afraid of . . .
Afraid of losing . . .
Sight of . . .
Touch with . . .
Before gaining . . . ?
What if . . .
What if it was me he couldn’t find. . .
Couldn’t find the words to express . . .
What he wanted . . .
Why he cared . . .
Where his fears came from . . . ?
What if . . .
What if it was me he couldn’t have . . .
Couldn’t have enough of . . .
Without hurting . . .
Before breaking . . .
And still breathe . . . ?
What if . . .
What if it was me he heard . . .
Heard whispering in his ear . . .
Of hopes and dreams . . .
Remote possibilities . . .
You are beauty to me . . . ?
What if . . .
What if it was me he thought about . . .
Thought about talking to . . .
And laughing with . . .
About living . . .
Forever . . . ?
What if . . .
What if I mattered too much . . .
Too much to try. . .
To find life with. . .
To chase adventure with . . .
To get tangled up with . . . ?
What if . . .
What if it was me he didn’t know . . .
Didn’t know how to love . . .
With vulnerability . . .
Despite all misgivings . . .
Above all else . . . ?
What if . . .
What if it was me . . .
What if he wanted me . . .
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
Ugly: very unattractive or unpleasant to look at; offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance.
“The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason,” John Cage.
As most of you know, I’m prone to sending out emails or texts with questions. Cat’s Question of the Day. You might be one of the lucky few to receive one of these correspondences and know what I am talking about. Haha! Whenever I pose these questions to you, it is because some idea has struck me in a new way or I’ve maybe come to some realization and I want to discuss it with someone. I’m not just asking the questions for the pure curiosity of asking questions. Though, I do love to ask questions and invite people to think about themselves or their world a little more deeply. I truly want to know myself and to know you on a more authentic level.
I remember asking people once what they thought of the idea of beauty and ugliness. I don’t recall the incident that brought this question to my mind. Usually something that has just happened has stopped me in my tracks. Now, you can imagine the clichéd responses I received; things like “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and “Beauty comes from inside,” and other such overused clichéd responses. Sadly, there were only a couple people who responded with more original thoughts, like “Beauty is only a light switch away,” and my personal favorite that makes me laugh every time I think about it, “Beauty and honey are the same thing. A direct correlation,” one man said. And since that confused me, I asked him to elaborate. He responded, “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder! A bee-holder is a hive and the eye is obviously the entrance way so beauty lies inside a bee hive. So it has to be honey.” Is that not great? I love it!! Maybe that’s why people call ones they love, “Honey.” Or maybe not… just a thought.
I was disappointed to hear all the unoriginal responses, as well intended as they were. It seemed that everyone missed the point of my question. I wasn’t asking what beauty was. I wanted to know what people thought about the idea of ugliness and beauty. And, frankly, I was more interested in the ugliness part of it. What is it that makes something ugly? Yes, each person sees beauty and ugliness a little differently than someone else. The clichés are often true.
But what is it in each of us that can look at someone or something and make a judgment about whether it is beautiful or ugly? We all do this. We see someone, perhaps a homeless person who smells badly, is covered in filthy clothes, hasn’t showered or done their hair and make-up in who knows how long, and all we see is ‘ugly.’ Or we see someone well-dressed, smelling good, stylish hair and/or make-up done to perfection, just all-around taken care of and we think, “Pretty or handsome.”
Or maybe it’s a place or an object we see that we designate to either the “beautiful” or “ugly” file in our minds and then dismiss it or embrace it, depending on which box we put it in. Obviously if something is ‘ugly’ we usually want nothing to do with it, will avoid it, ignore it, dismiss it, run from it as quickly as possible. Perhaps it threatens us in some way. Maybe the ugliness we see in it will somehow affect us or rub off on us if we go near it, like it might be contagious. Now, I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed that ugly places attract ugly people and ugly cars and ugly things… maybe I’ve just never seen that but I think it’s safe to say it doesn’t work that way.
When we put someone/something in the ‘beautiful’ box in our brain, we want to chase after it, embrace it, absorb it, touch it, possess it somehow, lavish attention on it and to the greatest extent possible. Right?
My question really boils down to this: what is it about me that can look at something and call it ugly? How is it that I can look at another human being and think, ‘ugly?’ Who am I to be in any position to make such a judgment?! I am nothing and no one who is qualified to be a judge! What all have I missed out on in this life because I dismissed something or someone as being ugly and therefore unworthy? What a heart-breaking realization for me on so many levels! Who all have I unwittingly or deliberately brought pain to by my dismissal of them based on my opinion of their unworthiness and ugliness?? Ouch!! What ideas have I dismissed outright because I found them to be beneath me based solely on who was sharing the idea? Such ignorance! What places have I not visited because I thought there was nothing there worthy of my all-important time and energy? What hypocrisy!! Who am I to think that I am any more worthy of another’s time or energy than anyone else? Do I think that I am more beautiful and therefore more valuable? Certainly not! Yuck! What an ugly thought! And yet .. . there is truth in it. An ugly truth and one I am hoping to change.
Ugliness is an idea, a perception. It is not something concrete that you can point at and say, “That! That right there, that is what ugly is!” Sure, we’ve all done that at one point in our lives, I’m sad to say. But that, to me, said nothing of whatever I may have been pointing at. Rather, it said a great deal about me and my own ugliness. Is there anything more offensive or hideous or dangerous than an ugly attitude or personality that is full of hate, ignorance and evil towards oneself or towards another? I find these ‘qualities’ to be the ugliest things in this world. It seems to me that the ability to find ugliness in another comes from our own inner ugliness, our arrogance, our pride, our skewed sense of self importance, our insecurities.
It humbles me greatly to know this about myself. I don’t like the fact that I can look at or listen to something and label it ‘ugly.’ If only we would take a second look, what beauty we might see where we first saw only ugliness!! How much fuller would our lives be if we looked for the beauty in everything rather than for the flaws that we deem to be ugly and final? I wish people would take another look at someone or something that we once so easily dismissed as ugly and therefore unworthy of our time, our energy, our attention, our anything, and perhaps find the beauty that was there all along. If only we would work to transform our own ugliness, our ugly thoughts and actions, into beauty, how we might change this world!!
Beauty: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
Ugly: very unattractive or unpleasant to look at; offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance.
“The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason,” John Cage.
As most of you know, I’m prone to sending out emails or texts with questions. Cat’s Question of the Day. You might be one of the lucky few to receive one of these correspondences and know what I am talking about. Haha! Whenever I pose these questions to you, it is because some idea has struck me in a new way or I’ve maybe come to some realization and I want to discuss it with someone. I’m not just asking the questions for the pure curiosity of asking questions. Though, I do love to ask questions and invite people to think about themselves or their world a little more deeply. I truly want to know myself and to know you on a more authentic level.
I remember asking people once what they thought of the idea of beauty and ugliness. I don’t recall the incident that brought this question to my mind. Usually something that has just happened has stopped me in my tracks. Now, you can imagine the clichéd responses I received; things like “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and “Beauty comes from inside,” and other such overused clichéd responses. Sadly, there were only a couple people who responded with more original thoughts, like “Beauty is only a light switch away,” and my personal favorite that makes me laugh every time I think about it, “Beauty and honey are the same thing. A direct correlation,” one man said. And since that confused me, I asked him to elaborate. He responded, “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder! A bee-holder is a hive and the eye is obviously the entrance way so beauty lies inside a bee hive. So it has to be honey.” Is that not great? I love it!! Maybe that’s why people call ones they love, “Honey.” Or maybe not… just a thought.
I was disappointed to hear all the unoriginal responses, as well intended as they were. It seemed that everyone missed the point of my question. I wasn’t asking what beauty was. I wanted to know what people thought about the idea of ugliness and beauty. And, frankly, I was more interested in the ugliness part of it. What is it that makes something ugly? Yes, each person sees beauty and ugliness a little differently than someone else. The clichés are often true.
But what is it in each of us that can look at someone or something and make a judgment about whether it is beautiful or ugly? We all do this. We see someone, perhaps a homeless person who smells badly, is covered in filthy clothes, hasn’t showered or done their hair and make-up in who knows how long, and all we see is ‘ugly.’ Or we see someone well-dressed, smelling good, stylish hair and/or make-up done to perfection, just all-around taken care of and we think, “Pretty or handsome.”
Or maybe it’s a place or an object we see that we designate to either the “beautiful” or “ugly” file in our minds and then dismiss it or embrace it, depending on which box we put it in. Obviously if something is ‘ugly’ we usually want nothing to do with it, will avoid it, ignore it, dismiss it, run from it as quickly as possible. Perhaps it threatens us in some way. Maybe the ugliness we see in it will somehow affect us or rub off on us if we go near it, like it might be contagious. Now, I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed that ugly places attract ugly people and ugly cars and ugly things… maybe I’ve just never seen that but I think it’s safe to say it doesn’t work that way.
When we put someone/something in the ‘beautiful’ box in our brain, we want to chase after it, embrace it, absorb it, touch it, possess it somehow, lavish attention on it and to the greatest extent possible. Right?
My question really boils down to this: what is it about me that can look at something and call it ugly? How is it that I can look at another human being and think, ‘ugly?’ Who am I to be in any position to make such a judgment?! I am nothing and no one who is qualified to be a judge! What all have I missed out on in this life because I dismissed something or someone as being ugly and therefore unworthy? What a heart-breaking realization for me on so many levels! Who all have I unwittingly or deliberately brought pain to by my dismissal of them based on my opinion of their unworthiness and ugliness?? Ouch!! What ideas have I dismissed outright because I found them to be beneath me based solely on who was sharing the idea? Such ignorance! What places have I not visited because I thought there was nothing there worthy of my all-important time and energy? What hypocrisy!! Who am I to think that I am any more worthy of another’s time or energy than anyone else? Do I think that I am more beautiful and therefore more valuable? Certainly not! Yuck! What an ugly thought! And yet .. . there is truth in it. An ugly truth and one I am hoping to change.
Ugliness is an idea, a perception. It is not something concrete that you can point at and say, “That! That right there, that is what ugly is!” Sure, we’ve all done that at one point in our lives, I’m sad to say. But that, to me, said nothing of whatever I may have been pointing at. Rather, it said a great deal about me and my own ugliness. Is there anything more offensive or hideous or dangerous than an ugly attitude or personality that is full of hate, ignorance and evil towards oneself or towards another? I find these ‘qualities’ to be the ugliest things in this world. It seems to me that the ability to find ugliness in another comes from our own inner ugliness, our arrogance, our pride, our skewed sense of self importance, our insecurities.
It humbles me greatly to know this about myself. I don’t like the fact that I can look at or listen to something and label it ‘ugly.’ If only we would take a second look, what beauty we might see where we first saw only ugliness!! How much fuller would our lives be if we looked for the beauty in everything rather than for the flaws that we deem to be ugly and final? I wish people would take another look at someone or something that we once so easily dismissed as ugly and therefore unworthy of our time, our energy, our attention, our anything, and perhaps find the beauty that was there all along. If only we would work to transform our own ugliness, our ugly thoughts and actions, into beauty, how we might change this world!!
There is a great deal more I could say about this topic and I'm sure there is plenty you could add. These are just some thoughts on one of those 'questions of the day. ' If you care to share your thoughts, I'd enjoy hearing them.
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