Unconditional

I'm sorry I didn't write a blog yesterday!  It was 1:30am, and I'd gotten a total of four hours the night before, had a filling, and spent half the day smiling the lopsided smile of a llama. xD  At the end of the day, after staying up later than I wanted to so I could post some discussion stuff for a few classes, I knew anything I spat onto my blog would more resemble vomit than actual words, so I figured I'd skip out.  I sort of stand by my decision, since I was about to die on the spot, but at the same time I hope I can avoid stuff like this in the future by getting a decent amount of sleep. xD  I really do want to keep this up daily.  I'm doing a failure job of it so far, though! xD

Anyways, so I kinda wanted to talk about something that's not really a major "oh my gosh we need to solve it now!" problem, but it's still kinda irksome (yes I use that word in casual sentences, it's awesome) to me.  Also, I believe it's been covered in pretty much every cliche teen romance movie in existence in one way or another, but hey, I won't let that stop me.

The thing is, today's society is so obsessed with appearances.  To that effect, it's kind of naive of us to suspect it to have been different in the past, but we do take it to extremes nowadays.  At least back in the day, it was the appearance of propriety, and the appearance of being acquainted with the day's most fashionable clothing (a minor offense these days).  Now it can go from anywhere from guys only liking girls with the right hairdos to women being so obsessed with how they look that they have plastic surgeries, some more ludicrous than others.

Honestly, I don't see the big deal.  Obviously, back in the medieval ages they thought that if a person were ugly, they would inevitably have a horrible personality, and if they were pretty, an amazing one.  Now, for the record, I don't believe in ugly people.  I hear so many tales of their existence, but to date I've seen no proof.  I tend to be of the opinion that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Hopefully you know what I'm referring to. :D  However, even when speaking of people that are plainer than others, I have found it is normally the complete opposite.  I mean, obviously not all plainer people are angelic and not all pretty people are horrible.  In fact, I wouldn't even say the majority of pretty people have horrible personalities.  However, I think that being plainer sort of gives a person perspective.

Somebody who's pretty and knows it, for instance, may hold themselves to a higher standard, and be more arrogant.  Somebody who's plainer probably isn't going to have a bloated pride.  They've got more chance of being humble.  They'll have personality standards, of course - I have personality standards!  But they won't be as "ohmahgosh, you're not popular/pretty enough for me."

Not to refer to literature, which is always sort of inevitable with me and mah issues, but Jane Eyre had no delusions about her lack of particularly striking beauty.  It made her, too, more humble.  It wasn't the only thing that contributed to her humility, but it was a portion of it nonetheless.  Because she knew she was plain, she turned down the jewelry Mr. Rochester offered her as the future Mrs. Rochester.  She said they would be wasted on her.

Additionally, when Mr. Rochester suffered the crippling burns in the fire that led to his blindness and the deformed face, he also had to learn to submit to others' leadership, something he would have scorned to do before.

Not only does beauty change a person's perception of themselves (and thereby, in some cases, their behavior) but it also changes the way other people perceive them.  Some girls can have the most despicable personalities and guys are either totally blind to it, or they're willing to overlook it all for their mere beauty.  Today I finished a piece by Henry James for American Literature class called Daisy Miller: A study.  It was about thirty-five pages, and the entire thing is about this girl who has absolutely no sense of right and wrong, and is completely apathetic that she indulges in foolish behavior which eventually gets her killed.  This poor guy sees nothing but her beauty.  His aunt sees right away that the girl's an absolute mass of impending disaster.  The guy knows better, he really does.  But every time he starts to go in the right direction and has momentary doubts about the absolute flawless morality of the girl, his brain turns off after an almost perfectly timed interval of five seconds and he just thinks: oh, look, pretty!  -.-  COME ON!!!

Really, I think that's what the whole piece is about.  Sometimes we're so blinded to people's real personality just because they're pretty and we therefore want to believe the outside reflects the inside.  The plain girls normally have their priorities more in order.  They realize that they have better things to do than wake up three hours earlier than they need to so they can straighten their hair and apply an obscene amount of make-up.  They realize that anybody who's worth their time won't care whether they've spent three hours and five hundred dollars on their hair.  Sadly, this doesn't mean that they're necessarily secure with how they look.  The truth is they're not plain.  Everyone's naturally beautiful.  The only difference is that some people spend a long time making themselves prettier.