on Beauty — What is beauty & where can it be found? (Part 2 of 2)
In part 1 of this two-part essay, two fascinating quotes challenged and later broadened my long-held view of beauty as a stand alone ideal. With this fresh perspective in mind, I set out to answer the question — what is beauty and where can it be found?
What is beauty & where can it be found?
When our hearts are stirred by a film, a song, the joy of a child, a simple hello, an act of kindness, or the touch of a loved one, that’s beauty.
Beauty is subtle. It's unforced and nowhere and everywhere all at once. Beauty won’t demand your attention, but it will invite it. It’ll brush right by you to see if you notice, but if you aren't paying attention, you will miss it.
Beauty cannot be dreamed, wished, or willed into existence. Nor can it be manufactured. Like inspiration, beauty is organic, and thus naturally presents itself to those ready to receive it.
Beauty, you must also know, is elusive, ghost-like, ineffable, ephemeral, and amorphous, but also impeccably real. You may question this, but I assure you it's true — it’s right outside your door right now. You need only open it to find out for yourself.
Beauty is sensory and visual and tangible. It is also stunningly impractical. Unlike the world of form and function, beauty is not time-bound or efficient. You cannot schedule beauty. It presents itself at the least opportune times and arises in the most unlikely places, most typically, in the midst of tragedy, on the edges of sorrow, and on the other side of our aching hearts.
Beauty never explains itself. It needn't. Beauty won't turn on the sun at night, but it will guide you to find your way in the darkness. Beauty won’t bring clarity to your pain, but it will reframe it. It won't give you all the answers, but it will loosen your grip on the need to know them. Beauty will also shift your view, open your heart, and brighten your perspective. It's triumphant in that way.
Beauty is playful and smart and wise. Sometimes it’s even romantic. One day beauty will challenge you to a game of hide & seek and the very next day it'll ask you to dance.
Beauty is elusive. Here one moment, gone the next. It's vapor, a flash, a shooting star glimmering across the night sky. When you find beauty or when it finds you, please delight in it while you can because ...poof... just like that, it'll be gone.
Beauty never carries an umbrella. Why should it? After all, isn't it rain that actually makes everything beautiful?
Beauty puts everything in its place. It restores and rebuilds and brings back to life. It repairs, reconnects, and redeems. Beauty is sunshine and rain on a weary soul.
Still unsure about beauty? Well, if you recently built a blanket fort with a child, paid wonder to a tree in bloom, said hello to a stranger on the street and saw their eyes widen and their face glow, or relieved an elderly person's worry by helping them safely across the street, you already know beauty.
If beauty is really what you're looking for then please slow down, stop, and stay a while. It'll be worth it.
Beauty Always Is.