On Book Covers

When I was 12, I wrote this story about a beautiful woman whose special powers were activated when she looked at you. Like Medusa, sort of. Every vampire in the world wanted to enslave her while they figured out how to steal her powers. Her powers caused all sorts of chaos in the vampire world. They fought constantly for ownership, sometimes killing each other's entire clans for the chance to kidnap the woman. They would almost kill her during the throes of their constant fighting, lock her up, hire special doctors to study her.  She hated her existence. Whenever she was close to death, some self-serving vampire would rescue her from it again. She would plead with the vampire to let her die, but the vampire would be so focused on using her powers to become the leader that he didn't notice how flawed and broken she was inside, or how her warped sense of self was turning her powers dark.

Some folks think the highest achievement we can hold is physical beauty. Not our own beauty - which is matchless and perfect - but our own beauty as it compares to the general standard of beauty.  Supermodels are defined by it. People spend their entire relationships performing grave disrespects to their partners because it's all covered under the "but he/she's hot" clause.  Superficially, a compliment about your appearance (for the sake of my rant, let's say the person isn't referring to your sense of style, or your sweet ass shoes.) is fantastic. It's a great resource as a quick attention whore fix.  And because it tends to be the thing by which we're most judged, we proudly take false ownership of it.

But  let's apply a little Spocktitude logic to this.

Our appearance is a genetic mash up of our folks'. That's why we're all beautiful. Our bodies are like giant fingerprints - all uniquely branded and made just for us from them.  Even among twins, our skin and lines and curves, or smile, our "beauty" - and in this way, we are all uniquely beautiful - are all thanks to them. 

When it comes to attraction, how you look shouldn't "make-or-break" matter. What should matter is what you do with your body. How you care for it. How you treat others. How you find ways to improve your life. How you appreciate the ingenuity of Star Trek. And all those things can't possibly be recognized by a stranger who tells you you're beautiful. 

I want...I wish people would dig deeper. I want to be acknowledged as a decent person. I want to own the composition of my parents' hearts: humility, poise, strength, curiosity, independence, integrity. 

 

I'm just realizing (as I type this) that my father may have had this in mind when he use to tell me,

 "If you didn't earn it, it isn't yours."

I always thought he was talking about my grades. He would stop the old Dodge in front of my high school and make me repeat it before getting out to head to class.  Hmm.

Diagram on personal identity measures
from "Promise of Potential"
(Jodi Davis)

 

As usual, I'm distracting myself from my own rant. I had this whole thing about guys and their loins here. But this is way too long already.

 

By the way, not just the girls. Guys, too. Charm and character replaces physical attractiveness any day in my opinion. Note my recent scent-marking on my own TV. I referred to the actor as "Downey Jr. sexy".

 

If Colin Farrell walked up to me, my nether region might light the sparklers and fire up the grill and bake a cake and blow up the balloons and call over the girls and throw confetti around, but I wouldn't introduce myself with, "You're hot." Although I have seen a great deal more of him in...um...other, more documentary-style films. Okay bad example all around.

 

Btw, the character in the story I mentioned earlier isn't a character representation of me. She was yoroppa hita. Blond hair, green eyes, tall. A representation of what I recognized as the western (and now, eastern) standard of beauty.

 

So, you think someone is physically attractive?  That's great. But who are they on the inside? Is he a good person? Is she a bitch?  Does he work hard? Is she nice to people? Do you care?

 

"Promise of Potential" author Jodi Davis defines "identity" as a collection of all things above and below our surface. Social classifications, preferences, gifts, talents. I've been working on a post about surface vs. hidden classifications for a while. But for the sake of this post, the key point is that we are the sum of our experiences and choices. I think that's a quote from somewhere.

 

Sigh. I keep changing my point. I started this post wanting to explain my perspective on the one thing...then it evolved into a whole other thing...now, my point is something completely different. It's really difficult to stay focused for this long because, although I'm typing 100 miles per minute, I'm a visual learner and my thoughts come to me in images which is why its difficult to explain things sometimes...also, the series finale of True Blood is on.  So far, not impressed. Out like a lamb, it seems.

 

My ramblings are getting longer. It's like some kind of senility.  Look. If you're reading this post, chances are you already know I'm a little bit strange.   No point in sugar coating it.  Seriously, could you imagine going anywhere with me? You'd have no idea what I was talking about the entire time.

 

My new point is this: Don't use physical appearance as the reason you decide to get to know someone or not. (That's the grandfather of "yellow fever", btw.) You might be ignoring a whole lot of really good people. And that wouldn't be fair to you or them.

 

Physical characteristics simply aren't the true barometer of a person's worth. In the end, I want to be remembered for beautifully carrying the best features of my parents' hearts.  Not their bodies.

 

 

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