Beauty is such an allusive concept that has been defined and misdefined for centuries. Last summer I was working in one of those minimum wage, minimum excitement jobs and once upon an average day in the glamorous food service industry a woman walked in.
Fast food barbie.
This lady was big. Beyond curvy, and she had obviously walked for at least a couple blocks in the rain. A mixture of precipitation and perspiration had condemned her to a really bad hair day, and her waterlogged tee shirt clung to her unsightly physique.
For some reason I could not stop looking at this woman, she was captivating.
Any earthy beauty she once possessed had slipped away and she had surrendered to an average appearance.
No big, whatever, I give up about once a week on my appearance (usually when I forget to do laundry) but this lady had really dropped out of life.
Anyway, she looked right at me, directly into my eyes, which most people don’t do.
At that moment she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. It was the strangest, most exquisite experience.
Her pain was so conspicuous. The fact that she was struggling was so tangible that it was impossible to not be completely enveloped in her poignancy.
The simple honesty of her situation was striking, it brought me to tears.
She never said anything to me, I don't know her name, or anything about her, but we definitely had a moment, and it was beautiful.
I once spent a whole day at a blown glass museum in Tacoma, Washington. Besides being incredibly repetitive, it was actually very edifying.
Pretty. If care bears were blown glass, this probably what would happen.
On the wall in one of the galleries was a sign that said, “ The opposite of art is not ugliness, it is indifference”
Beauty is the same. I don’t believe in ugly, only in apathy or laziness. President Monson recently spoke on the importance on finding joy in the journey.
An essential part of finding joy is finding beauty. How often do we neglect to notice a well designed building or a well laid out interface for a website? These are beautiful things that deserve not only our recognition, but most importantly our awareness.
That fact that our days are saturated with media influences and constant information does not make us except from our duty to appreciate the world around us, not only naturally, but what those around us have taken the opportunity to create.
There are so many forms of beauty that are neglected in our universe plagued by our generation who are becoming apathetic droids going about their mindless endeavors.
Rising above the mediocrity mandates that we acknowledge the beauty in our world and derive joy from those simple beauties that are so often forgotten.
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