Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

I have tried and quickly failed to dignify this article, one that is so close to my heart, with the right introduction. I had so many thoughts when I started writing, but it's getting increasingly tricky to accurately express what's in my mind to a casual reader browsing through for some new content.

Instead, I want to ask you, do you sometimes feel a connection so stimulating to the lyric of a song or a line from a book that it gives meaning to everything you believe in? I, for one, like to think of beauty as a means of saying something unsaid; it's like a song that begins from within and touches your heart. It's all around us, from the sweetness of flowers to the way a candle melts or the haphazard falling of snow. But if I asked you honestly, say you were walking down a street and you saw a wilted flower lying there, would you consider it more beautiful, or even as beautiful? We commonly make the mistake of associating beauty with something superficial, something unnatural. There is beauty in the conventionally "not so beautiful." There is beauty in death because I don't think there is anything more real than death. I believe that real is beautiful. You're lovely whether you have grey hair or none at all. Because, ultimately, everything comes off and what's left is your reality. It disturbs me how people don't realize how much more engaging kindness, compassion and generosity are. These pure remedies are what makes humanity beautiful. Why do we struggle to cover up stretch marks when they symbolize strength? It is your skin stretching into who you're meant to be. It is nature's way of showing you the most incredible art on your very body. While I understand that appreciating beauty is good, I certainly think it isn't limited to what we see at face value, quite literally. There is beauty in acid attack survivors, the beauty that lies in their unwavering hope and resilience. There is beauty in the crevices of a rock, and there is beauty in double chins; I can keep going on. Imagine, for a moment, that none of us had facial features except for our eyes. The only way you could then determine beauty is by looking into their very soul and not what colour their skin is or how symmetrical their nose is.

My sole purpose of writing this is to inspire as many people as I can to understand my simple view of beauty and how I've come to realize it in the short time I've been in this world. Young girls and boys my age find it hard to do the same, and I sometimes wonder how different things could be if they did. No beauty could ever shine brighter than that of a good heart.