So, he says to me: I have never known a little girl that was not physically beautiful.
You see, I HATE this kind of talk. I mean it sounds so nice right? Everyone is beautiful! Not just on the inside but on the outside too! Everyone wins! Magic! Disney! Your dreams ALWAYS come true!
What a pack of lies. Everyone knows, that dreams don't always come true. Everyone can't win. Some people lose. I simply do not see the point or the value in saying "everyone is physically beautiful" I mean what does that even mean? Is the concept of physical beauty so destructive, so scary, so awful that we have to try and say that it doesn't even exist? Hide it from the children? Make it everything... and therefore nothing?
I was normal as a child, so I didn't think about beauty much-- as a teen I was downright ugly. I think lot of teens look ... odd ...and there is nothing more confusing to have your body going in to this horrible disfiguring decline while, at the same time, having a bunch of people keep saying to you "but everyone is beautiful!" And all you can think is "No, I'm not!" I remember reading 1984 at the time and thinking "this is what Orwell means by 'newspeak'... up is down... ugly is beautiful." You can see it's a lie with your own eyes ... and so, it's really confusing to have people you want to trust just lying to you to make you feel good. (As if believing you were beautiful was the whole key to feeling good. As if it mattered that much... and then the lies make you wonder if maybe it does matter that much...) What has always helped me most was the idea that I didn't need to be beautiful to be loved. Now there is a powerful idea. I don't need to be beautiful to be a good person or to matter. To me that's the loving message: Beauty is nice, it's amazing... but it doesn't matter so much. It is superficial.
To me saying "everyone is beautiful" just sounds like a way of dodging responsibility of the general harshness of being a kid who isn't cute and doesn't fit in. If all little girls are "physically beautiful" then why are some attacked tortured and teased by their peers? Why do some look in the mirrors and think "Wow, I'm really really really ugly." Saying "hey your feelings and ideas are imaginary and WRONG" isn't helpful... it helps the person who says it more than the person who is hurting. It feels good to say "everyone is beautiful" is doesn't feel good to have someone say that to you when you don't think that it is true. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Say: "Really? OK. I'm beautiful? OK! Yay!" and just accept that I was in no position to see or judge what was beautiful and what wasn't on my own? Didn't my thoughts matter? Didn't what I saw matter? What I see and what I think matters!
The truth is no one wants to tell anyone (especially a young person or a child) that they are not physically beautiful since it's just "too hurtful" we think that it would be this "really destructive" thing to say. In fact, it isn't "destructive" if one can just recognize that being beautiful has no bearing on ones self-worth. Ugly people matter. Ugly people move the world. Ugly people are among the best people I have ever known. Ugly people are amazing and they are ugly while being amazing. Denying the truth as the young person sees it is more destructive IMHO. "There is no such thing as beauty." it would be just as productive to say "Oh just don't think about that... think of a rainbow..." It's so inane. It's so patronizing.
Why not teach everyone that beauty hasn't got anything to do with if some one should be treated with kindness or respect? Physical beauty isn't a prerequisite for love, or for living a good life... it's amazing fun, yes, it even comes with its own set of problems too and it lets you wear cute clothes and enjoy your refection... but beyond that? It's not much. So, why not do that instead of trying to make the concept vanish ....when we know it won't?
To, me it's so much more honest. And there is something beautiful (yes beautiful, though not physically) about the naked ugly truth.