A term worth discussing - 'Ugly' and my own episode (bias) with it from youth

Every Christmas mom would decorate all to hell. Would take her literally days inside and out.

My favorite decoration and toy - the manger scene. Wooden manger scene, plaster pieces. To me, it was another toy. We had the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, an Angel, Wise men, Shepherd, and animals, and a few others thrown in for good measure.

The shepherd's face had been sheered off years ago. So had one of the lambs.

They were, as I played, the 'bad' guys.

I am 41 now, and it was way back in the day I played with them. The roof had real straw on it too, I still remember the feel of it.

Remembering it all now, I wonder what led me to make the 'ugly' or odd man out figurines the bad guys.

Not saying the pretty ones should be bad either really, that is another trap in and of itself.

I did not grow up around pretty things or people (by current standards I suppose). And hell, I ain't nothing worth looking at myself.

But it all got me to wondering about how a little boy, me, could equate 'ugliness' with being bad - that an outward appearance told me something about an inward one.

And I wonder if that is still not re-enforced today in our corporate world. The well manicured pretty boys and girls being seen as successful and good, the slackers and losers being seen as the ones who dress down or don't shave, etc.

Over the years I saw and learned that beauty is something much more deep than what we see. My mom was a beautiful person, but not like you see on the cover of a magazine. She was not Miss USA :)

I see my wife, with her parkinson's and Asthma and such, helping a little daisy troop along. I see so many people doing so much for others - and then I see the 'beauty queens' living a life of self indulgence.

And who gets all the press and money? The pretty people who go on long selfish binges.

I don't begrudge such folks, I am not jealous of them and what they have. Though certainly I would like to have the security financially some of them enjoy.

I do, however, wonder what has become of a society where we place value on looks and not on substance. Where we celebrate and promote the wild side of people while totally passing over the good works of so many.

Somewhere today a nurse held the hand of a sick and dying child.

Somewhere today an overweight woman with dirty hair fed a homeless person.

Somewhere today a real hero did the dirty work in a nursing home to make the life of someone better.

And yet we celebrate those who do nothing but look nice.

The real beauty is not on tv, the real heroes are not on the playing field of sports.

The real beauty is all around us, reaching out each day to make someone's life better.

The real heroes are changing bed pans instead of posing in thongs.

The real people I admire - are never going to see themselves on TV or on magazine covers.

I grew up. I learned. Damned shame no one in our media has done so.

Good on you my friends. Keep up the good work, and keep being my hero. We need you. Not Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears and all those other folks.

I appreciate you. I applaud you. And I am sure many other folks here do as well.

You are not forgotten. Not here anyway.

:thumbsup:

...because this is a true "Christmas message." Thanks, TSS...

appreciatively,
Bright

I see plenty of people with nice regular features, good skin.....and a blank face.
No personality, no animation, no brains, nobody home at all.

And that is what passes for beauty in our society. :puke:

If you wear glasses to see where you're going, or you wear braces on your teeth to improve yourself, or you happen to be short and/or fat, because of genetics, or a metabolic problem, or whatever, that's just a real sin in our society.

The good thing about the show "Ugly Betty" is that she is basically a much nicer person than the egotistical back stabbing vacuous people she works for.

except I don't think she's ugly--I think she's the cutest thing on television!

Some of what we think of as "beauty" is biological, derived from the need to recongnize other members of our species as such. There is a theory out there with some substantiation that we all are born with models of an "average" human face (with variations for ethnic differences), and that people who look most like this "average" face are rated most attractive. It's been supported by work on composite images of faces. Faces that are averages of 128 different overlays are rated as much more attractive than those composed of 8 overlasy.

It's shocking to see the Playboy pinups from the 50's-70's and compare them with the ones from the 80's to the present. The women in the older magazines were certainly beautiful by any standard, but they actually looked normal -- they looked like women you might see on any street (or beach!).

Since the 80's the cultural standards of "beauty" have been departing more and more from what real people look like. Airbrushing is an absolute necessity -- and so is plastic surgery much of the time. The women in contemporary pinups bear little resemblence to any woman you're likely to actually meet in real life. What the hell happened??

the more attractive they become. Not the other way around. But that's just me.

The people I love bring me joy when I see them. What could be more beautiful than that. I have, on the other hand, tried to get out of sight of people who have ugly souls.

As far as just beauty itself is concerned, that's measured by what a person is like inside. People who judge only what is outside a person are missing the most important part of who a person is.

not by looking at them with your eyes, but just by getting to know the person, and seeing how they deal with things, and how they go about life.

In your 'everyday heroes,' you mention a nurse, a nursing home worker and ... and "overweight woman with dirty hair." Not an acne-scarred nurse; not a balding nursing home worker with a cleft palate, but you sure know what ugly is - overweight, and probably unwashed.

You're right - there's all sorts of ugliness, isn't there?

piece in your local paper?

what an excellent piece of prose! How true, how true. There are reasons that I've never submitted a pic of myself in the many picture threads that show up around DU, especially in my much loved Lounge. I am not skinny nor am I a beauty queen.

jesus and his little family come in for such magnanimous P.R. that anyone around them pales in comparison. hence the little boy's perception that nothing comes even close to the "goodness" of the homeless trio. maybe something like his happened in the recent elections? shrub and his henchassholes have come to be perceived as such shitheads that the voter, as did that little boy, perceives that which opposes as Good. hence the results at the polls. quien sabe.

at any rate, in spirit of the season, t.s. eliot and i want to share this with you. Speaking is one of those "Wise" men, a Magus:

The Journey of the Magi

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.


Happy weekend & holiday.

recommended.

mvs

http://readraza.com/

Keep the hits a comming, Straight!

It was assumed that beautiful was better. I remember friends in high school literally standing around rating how good-looking people were and thus which ones were worth talking to. Now that behavior was true ugliness and even then I felt something really wrong about it. Conversely, one of the greatest joys of my life was to grow up and discover how much heart-wrenching beauty can dwell in the most outwardly unsuspecting packages.

Great post. :thumbsup:

It is true that everyone is born with a certain potential for attractive physical features or unattractive features. People with money are more likely to be able to enhance what attractiveness they naturually have or buy products that help them correct features that aren't as physically attractive.
More affluent people can buy nice clothes, good make up, good skin and hair care products, go to good hair/make up/nails stylists regularly, eat well nutritionally if they choose, have dental work, or have plastic surgery. They are less likely to work at jobs that require one to get dirty, exert oneself physically, or be exposed to cold, heat, dust, or chemicals. They are more likely to have good posture and appear confident because they are not treated as lesser people, don't have to worry about survival, and are more likely to get the health care that they need if they do have a physical or mental health problem.
The media perpetuates this, of course, by generally showing attractive people, especially women, in all forms, unless the character is supposed to be less attractive for some reason. Successful people are always shown looking their best.