Beauty

A few days ago someone I hadn’t seen in a long time came to visit me. We were catching up. We noted how we had both grown older, and we began comparing notes about how that had gone for each of us. One of the things he told me about was how much more beautiful people had become. I realized, with his words, that my idea of beauty had changed too. That started me on a train of thought that I want to share with you.

I have been delighted to discover, that one of the positive elements of getting older, is that a person can become, more and more, themselves. I have always related to this movement as one of becoming more and more unique. The advent of personal uniqueness has been a hallmark of aging, in my perspective. For him, this kind of development meant people became more beautiful! I like his perception, because I think it is true, and because I also think it represents an important evolution in my concept of beauty.

I have grown up in a culture that primarily conceived of beauty in the young female form. Setting aside, for this moment, what that has done to women, I want to explore what this notion of beauty has done to older people. I suspect some of the invisibility that many older folks experience is related to this way of seeing beauty. I also think some of the revulsion about aging has its roots in this very limited concept of beauty.

Beauty has for too long been primarily considered an external phenomenon. It has been an aspect of appearance. Sure, there has been some acknowledgement of internal beauty, like a beautiful personality, but there hasn’t been a wide-spread realization that beauty could be an innate quality that comes out with life experience and uniqueness. Beauty then is more like a diverse eco-system, a quality of Life’s devotion to profusion and diversity. Beauty, in this later conception, is a combination of internal factors and a relationship with more of the whole of Life. This notion seems more organic, humane, and lasting, than something that involves a winning a genetic lottery.

The evolution of my sense of beauty is also helping me perceive beauty outside the skin –encapsulated world I’ve formerly lived in. Now, I’m much more likely to see the complex beauty of something that has both an internal and external ability to find a certain kind of alignment. This has been especially true in my experience of those people and places that have endured the rigors of existence. I’m finding I’m growing more partial to scars, marks, wrinkles, and the wisdom derived from heartache. Beauty has become something marked by Life.

It seems to me one of the greatest gifts of being human has been the gift of being able to perceive the complex poignancy of Life. There is beauty in suffering the unknown for the sake of the whole. I can’t describe that kind of beauty, I think it can only be experienced. Beauty can be an inexplicable experience — a way mystery has plucked a gossamer heartstring — that resonates into every cell of being. Beauty can be a particular poignant moment, a flash of meaning colliding with attention. Beauty can be a state of mind that is revealed with showing up and being present. Beauty can be seen everywhere, if one is willing to embrace it all — especially those places where the darkness and the light combine.

I like Leonard Cohen’s realization that the crack is where the light gets in. My way of saying it, is that hardship is the hand of artistry. Beauty, on the way.

It helps me feel better about being involved in this transitory soup when I think that the experience of beauty evolves, and that as my eyesight grows dimmer, it also grows sharper. That also seems beautiful to me. Maybe death, which is part of Nature’s design, is really, as the poet Hafiz suggests, “a favor.” If so, that’s incredibly beautiful.