Love or Beauty?

Why does someone love someone? What is that something that attracts somebody to somebody. Is it love or beauty? These days people fall for these famous celebrities. Even if they look or smell bad, youth of this generation from all over the world are attracted towards them. Why? Why does appearance and beauty matters so much? Is it that beauty and love are same things but different names?

“The first time I saw her, I knew I was in love with her; madly in love.”

 I’ve been hearing such remarks quite often these days. I see how these guys and girls fall head over heels for each other, and I wonder how does it work? Love at first sight? Does such a thing really exist? How could you know you are in love and ready to spend the rest of your life with a person you just met? What when her beauty fades away and she becomes old? Would he still love her? Would he still like to spend the rest of his life with her? You say you are in love with the beautiful girl you met a couple of days ago, what would you do if she turned out to be a bad evil natured woman? Beauty has the capability to camouflage the flaws to some extent, so later when she gains fat over her muscles and her smooth skin gets wrinkled, would your feelings remain the same? No? So all along you weren’t in love. It was the appearance that caught you. Appearance gone, love gone.

Judging a book by its cover has become a common practice for us. We judge a person by how she looks and not how she thinks. Love of this generation depends on the outer beauty not the inner beauty; heart. This is one of the major reasons why everybody is busy in enhancing her appearance and does very less to purify her inner soul which is actually the element for love.

I do not believe in love at first sight which of course is pretty common and romanticized to great extent. The way physicality is confused with romance, similarly most of the people, confuse physical attraction with love. Love is a strong word. All other emotions originate from the notion love. It’s basically lust that attracts you to a person.

I’m not denying the fact that appearance doesn’t have an impact on our perception for the person because it does, but to a minor magnitude. It’s natural to give preference to a finer looking thing over the ordinary. But if a person who is below average in his looks have the grace of a gentleman and is decent and respectful in conversation while another person who is handsome beyond words is an arrogant hard man, who would be more liked?

On the other hand, if somebody is attracted towards someone by love he will always love her regardless of her beauty. No matter how old she becomes, he is still going to be with her. I am not saying that personality doesn’t changes. It does. Like every other thing personality does change but according to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, study conducted at Berkeley, personality changes for better with age. And one wouldn’t mind if his love changes her personality for better; If she starts thinking in more sensible way, if she becomes strong enough to protect herself,  If now she has learnt to hold her head up high and not cares about what people say? Who would mind that? At least I won’t.

Age enhances personality and the beauty. But the beauty of an 80 old women would be her confidence, style and personality. And that comes from experience which comes with age. The point I’m trying to make here is that when one’s love becomes old he don’t look at the outer beauty but to the inner beauty. That is because he himself would become old and would develop the same changes. He would start looking things differently.

And even with time, the maturity level increases and so does our way of perceiving things. We don’t see things the way we used to see. In the similar fashion, at the age of 80 one wouldn’t see his love with the eyes of a young man, but instead with those of an old man. And if he loved her back in those days, then now he would love her even better; selflessly and tenderly. Because when age increases, maturity level also increases.

Love and beauty have things in common but I wouldn’t call them directly proportional. We love people because of their inner soul; heart. Everybody has heart which beats for their love but don’t ugly people have hearts? Don’t they have a right to love or to be loved? Why is it that people are attracted towards pretty faces and not ugly ones? What if you met with an accident and lost your pretty face. Wouldn’t you still want your love to love you? I think we all should give it a thought.

In the end I would just like to say that basically the attraction for beauty isn’t love but lust. The attraction by appearance is lust and attraction by personality is love. Love is the only emotion which keeps soul mates bonded even when beauty fades away. This is reason we don’t love people by their appearance but by their personality and heart. No matter how pretty face you see, if she doesn’t have a good personality then a sensibly mature person wouldn’t fall for her. 

Selfishness

“This is so sweet.” Sarah said, taking a sip of coffee.

Sidra was so entrenched in the turmoil that she thought she sweeten it. “Really?” She asked raising her brows.” I might have put extra sugar in it. Let me make another one for you.” She said in an apologizing manner.

“Extra sugar? Sarah shrugged, arching her eyebrows. “Oh no! I mean the gift you bought for your sister is sweet.”

“You mean you like it?” Sidra asked.

“No, I mean you bought the present for your sister without any occasion is sweet.”

 “Oh that. That appear to be sweet but isn’t.” Sidra said, keeping the hot cup of coffee down on the table. They were seated on the couch below the rusty wrought iron chandelier suspending from the three story high roof. It was a frigid winter night. She could see the chandelier moving back and forth due to the cold breeze. “But anyway thank you.”

“What is it then?” Sarah asked eagerly.

“I’m just trying to placate her for my bad behavior.”

“Not everybody does that. She is lucky to have a sweet and caring sister like you.”

 Sarah said trying to make her feel good. But she failed. She failed like every other time. Sidra was so mad at her life that she couldn’t keep herself from bursting out at her. “To break someone’s heart and then appease them by different means is that what you call being sweet? I call it being selfish.” She clamored.

Sara had never seen Sidra this furious. She tried to pacify her anger but added fumes to it; fumes that immensely ignited her anger forcing her to vent her heart out.

“It might not be sweet but at least it is not selfish. You realized your mistake and now you are trying to improve it. What’s so selfish about this? “

“That is what being selfish is all about.” She yelled.” I’m trying to placate her because I can’t live with the guilt that I hurt her and I’m the reason behind her sadness.” She closed her eyes, took a long deep breath trying to calm her infuriation and rested her forehead on her palm.  

Sidra couldn’t bear anyone woeful around her. The sole purpose of her life was to spread happiness at every step she takes. But watching herself sacrificing her own dream was wrenching.

“Doing something with a design of being rewarded is selfishness, and I don’t see any reward coming to you.” She said trying to make a point.

“Of course it is! Sidra said, raising her head. Can’t you see forgiveness would be on my way?”

“Why would you ever call it a reward?” Sarah gesticulated.

“Nothing is more rewarding than being in paradise on earth.” Sidra grinned. Her grin faded as soon as she looked at the wall photo hanging between the tapestries. The photo was of her and her sister clicked two years ago on the beach. The picture was so close to her heart that she hanged it in her room and often talked to it. But now she couldn’t even make an eye contact with it. Every time she sees it, she remembers how rudely she insulted her; how bad she made her sister feel.

“What are you talking about?”  Sarah interrupted her thoughts.

 “A person who is forgiven is in peace.” Sidra stopped for a moment and stared at the picture.” At least I feel I’m in a different peaceful world which I think heaven is all about.” She said, looking back at her.

Sarah thought for a moment but still couldn’t completely agree with it.” I don’t think that way. You cannot say everyone has a personal desire behind doing something good.”

“I too used to think that way. But believe me, as life moves on, our perspective of understanding things starts changing.  It depends on everyone’s intellect, caliber and experience. One might not think the way I think; the way you think.” Sidra said. Her voice was calm as if she could already feel the heaven.

“Did you just say that I am not intellectual?” Sarah said trying to change the topic. She could see that Sidra was now back; back from her turmoil.

“What? When did I say that?” Sidra replied with a smile on her face.

“Just kidding. Let’s have coffee. What do you say?” Sarah asked.

“I’ll be right back.” Sidra replied walking out of the room towards kitchen.

When Sidra came back with coffee, Sarah moved closer to Sidra, squeezed her hand gently and said, “Sometimes, we just have to accept things as they are. It is okay to make mistakes; the best thing is its realization. And not every person has such a strong conscience to accept and counter the damage they’ve done. Besides, relations don’t need formalities Sidra. Communicate with her. Seriously.” Sarah smiled vaguely, lost in thoughts. She was coming to make sense of everything Sidra said.

“And seriously,” Sarah added with a playful tone,” If I were too lucky to have a sister as you who’d accept her mistake, man I’d have taken such unfair advantages!” Sidra laughed cheerfully at the humor which now surrounded both of them. “Thank you”, Sidra said earnestly.” You’re right, we complicate things for ourselves.” She paused for a while and with a long wistful gaze at the picture, Sidra added pleasantly,” relations really don’t need formalities.”

“Absolutely”, Sidra said. “So shall we continue with our coffees now?”

Translation...

By the time I reached there, almost everybody had arrived. But I wasn’t anxious for them but for someone who wasn’t there as yet. My mind was captured by different thoughts; what if her father didn’t allow; what if something else might have happened, but all these abstracts thought vanished away when I heard the donkey cart approaching closer. It seemed the whole environment had come to a halt; the cold breeze had paused and suddenly the birds had forgotten to chant for the moment. Everything was silently shouting “It was her”. She along with her siblings was walking towards me. The spark in her younger sister’s eyes was telling that she had recognized me. She whispered something in her older sister’s ear and that is when she looked up at me. Whatever I felt after our first eye contact; pain, desire, crave and alienation - everything came to an end after this second brief eye contact.

In a moment, she went by leaving me with her warm presence. It seemed that everything came back to life; the birds started chanting and the breeze continued to refresh the surroundings. There are very few moments you want to live again and again. And this was one of them. But unfortunately, like every other thing this too had to stay with me forever, in my memories.