If looks could kill
I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine. My friend Bob is very strong thinker as I’m much more of a feeler. We got into the topic of dating when I asked him about women and their looks. I will admit that how a woman looks is important to me…it’s not the most important but it’s still something I consider. My friend said that looks is only one facet of information that we get. And like everything else, we’ll come to either accept or reject someone based on their looks.
In other words, if you’re not attracted to someone when you meet them, you may grow to accept them despite this.
This is actually not as horrifying as it sounds. Put simply, Bob equated looks to any other quirk. It is only the society at large puts a large value on looks that makes the evaluation much harder. And I think this is something worth thinking about.
Ever since the dawn of time, looks and beauty have been coveted by society. Open any magazine, watch any commercial and you will not find one unattractive person. Heck, even Ugly Betty isn’t that ugly! The story of the savior of the Jews was predicated on looks. The Jewish people expected their savior to be a military ruler, not a carpenter born in a manger.
The difficult part of not judging a person by their looks is that we’ve been taught from a very early age that looks are important. In school, we’re told to fit in. Dress like other people to be accepted. Don’t talk to strangers. If someone looks dangerous, don’t go near them. Stay away from sketchy neighborhoods. All of these rules are predicated on looks, not content.
Unlike content or our personality, looks are immediate. Men suck in their get when an attractive women walks by. It’s like instinct. Women check their make up before leaving the bathroom. Yet I’m willing to bet that no one ever goes out of their way to change their personality.
I think the world’s obsession with looks says something very disturbing about our true nature. Perhaps we hope that if we make the windows look nice, we won’t have to worry about the mess that’s inside the walls. Or maybe if people notice how cool I look, they won’t ask me about the last time I talked with my parents.
If looks could tell a story, it would be probably be the opposite of what is really going on. I think of looks could kill, they would kill the insecurity that every one of us holds deep in our souls. The same insecurity that is responsible for using our looks as a crutch.