Beauty, Destruction, Perfection

I am about to break Tyler Durden's rules # 1 & 2. Fuck him.

For anyone that has seen the movie Fight Club, we all would recognize the line "I just felt like destroying something beautiful" after the Narrator beats the shit out of the blond guy.

This being said, finding the beauty in destruction is an easy task. Why else, for instance, would demolitions experts continue to stand around and watch their master work? It is a beautiful sight to see. Seeing the beauty in destruction is easy.

But I began to think in that dangerous mind frame of mine again. What is there to see if we change that phrase around? Can you see the destruction in beauty? Or, a possibly more important question, is there destruction in beauty?

I answer with a resounding YES! Assuming that all of my readers live in the States, or that most of my readers are from/have an understanding of a Western culture, we clearly see the overemphasis of beauty in marketing and adverts of all times. The only time that you will likely see an "ugly" person on your telivision is when a product makes someone "beautiful." Now, we have all been taught that "beauty" is in the eye of the beholder, and that "beauty" is a good thing, something to strive for. What we have never been taught, however, is the cost of "beauty." American marketing firms push and push to promote the idea that thin is beauty and that being thin is one of the ultimate goals in life for the female populous. But I urge you to look around. How many have you known that developed eating disorders in their attempts to fit in with this ridiculous notion of "beauty"?

This leans heavily on the idea of stereotypes, as well. Perhaps it is only the shows and commercials that I personally have seen, but I do not recall many black ladies as fitting "into the mold" of "beauty." Thus far, I recall strictly seeing the young white girl, or the light-skinned black girl, as the only ideal. Are not the black women just as pretty? The white supremacist have taken over the direction where our society's ideas go; it sickens me.

But it is not fair to merely limit the concept of "beauty" to the physical, that which is shown through some predetermined gene. We must also consider the behaviors of women. "Beautiful" women are never shown as being happy in life. They are always in some struggle to improve their social status... usually through equal rights. Go ahead and count the number of films that you have seen in the past six months that (paraphrased) include a line or a monologue that has the woman demand the man see her as an equal. But this contradicts the other stereotype that men have of women as either a) needing to be saved from some peril, or b) being weak which allows them to fall into the arms of a man to find love. Can we seriously expect that a woman who has sex with multiple partners will understand the concept of love and finally feel "beautiful" because she has screwed the "right guy"? Hardly.

This being said, I have nothing against others enjoying themselves and/or sleeping around. But to think that a woman being "easy" makes her "beautiful" to men sickens me.

What, then, is "beauty" if it cannot be defined through stereotypes and false advertisements? Is it not the girl on the sidelines who never has to go through the character flaws that we see in our heroes/heroines? Personally, I find the sidekick to be more attractive than the heroine that the movie or television show centers around. Granted, the sidekick does not quite have the depth that the heroine has, as we do not see the sidekick as much, nor do we know her back story. But perhaps it is this that redeems her? Since we only know what is directly revealed, we can be free to see the sidekick as beautiful because of this aura of mystery around her. Maybe that is what beauty truly is: the freedom of getting to know someone not based on their physicality but through their character traits like loyalty and humor. I would argue that is what makes a perfect girl. Not her outer "beauty," but her inner beauty.

Where is Home? What is Home?

This past weekend, my mother retrieved me from university to take me home. So, I went. It is the same house that I have resided in for the past thirteen years, with the same occupants. And yet, it was unsettling to realize that it did not feel like I was home. I had merely come back to my parents' house.

The Friday of this weekend, I went "home" to the junior college that I began my post-secondary studies at. For most of the time that I was there, I had always joked that it was my "home" because of how much time I spent there. I was almost surprised at how exactly like a real home it felt to go back to. Sure, I did not have a couch to crash on or a refrigerator to raid, but I had returned home to family. There is nothing quite like that feeling. ...At least, I have yet to run across it in my many years.

Part of what is unsettling about the incident to me is that I've only ever felt like that one time before. Years ago, I would delude myself into thinking that I held some sort of a relationship with an attractive young lady that I alluded to several times in most of my early posts. I cannot remember the name that I wrote for her, but I believe that she goes by "Torikabuto" at times. The point of it is that during the end of my secondary school career, I was allowed to spend a day with her. We ended up walking through a bit of the downtown area of the city where she lived, and her mother came to pick us up when we were finished. As we arrived back at Torikabuto's house (where I had parked my car), I felt an odd sense of peace wash over me as I approached the house.

It feels odd to remember such long-lost memories as that in the simple act of going back to my first college. ...Two places that I've every felt totally at ease...only one of which I may return to. It makes me question what makes us call "home" our home. Is it merely returning to a familiar house at some marked interval? Or perhaps it is not so much a specific location as it is spending time with those whose company we enjoy. The second option doesn't fit into many stereotypes about going "home," but I think that we can forgive that for the sake of argument.

I propose, at the very least, that it is a question that deserves some attention?