Walking, talking, dancing, running, listening, sitting, in the corner of a room, observing. All these an images of my evolving mind since November 23, 1999.

My brain is a product of my environment: all the ideas, thoughts, words, and people. Not only has my mind changed, but also my fashion sense: from burnt, flat ironed hair and American Eagle hand-me-downs to my true curls and cotton t-shirts, I have become confident in the individual I am. Although, even though my years of hair straightening, brand wearing, clique snooping evolution, I always had one thing that I believed made me different: my eyebrows.

Believe it or not, during this time I thought my eyebrows were the greatest setback of my life. Thick bushes over my eyes, like tangles of doom, a shadow to the brightness of my face. Everyone thought I was mad, although I never was. I heard many hurtful things:

"Sara, why don't you ever smile?"

"Sara, what's wrong with you today?"

"Sara? Oh, I thought you were a boy."

Elementary school was torture. I was repeatedly laughed at, mocked, and snorted in the hallway by young fools who shamelessly disapproved of the element of my face of which I had no control over. It was fine. In the early years, I resorted to swinging and skipping alone at recess. Although, when the later years of elementary school came, I was affected deep within my mind. I was still an outlier, I always had been, but this time, the words that young peers said to me affected my brain and mental stability.

I became obsessed with the idea that my eyebrows kept me from having friends. I believed that my eyebrows were the reason that I was an outcast. Although, later I found that what kept me from making friends and sharing pop tarts was a unique curiosity within my mind: a gift I was given to explore that no one else seemed to have. Although this special curiosity worked ironically, instead of allowing this gift that made me different to dive me deeper into unknown thoughts and concepts, I became a victim of fear. Ironically, this curiosity blinded me, at the time, by my distortion of reality. I wanted nothing more than to shave my eyebrows.

Then comes a plot twist. After all the mocking, teasing, and nonexistent birthday party invites, the world took a sudden shift from eyebrow plucking savages to eyebrow shading, penciling, and thickening robots. It was finally cool to look like me.

I know i'm not the only one who experienced this turn of events from mocked to admired. I'm sure many thick-eyebrow havers took a liking to the new forms of praise for having great brows. I however found it annoyingly ironic. This is because I saw this eyebrow phenomenon for the sly little beast it is. Believe it or not, the concepts of beauty trends like eyebrows relates deep into the concepts of psychology and philosophy which I will break down and explore for you in this article.

I hear it all the time.

"I love your eyebrows, they look so perfect."

Honestly, I give a smile, but as this commoner passes out of sight I roll my eyes at their comment. Why? Do I roll my eyes because I am a ruthless savage still holding a grudge from her kindergarten bullying years? No. I roll my eyes because that person that "loves my eyebrows" is most likely a terribly sad product of society. Naive, these people walk away unaware that the only reason they like my eyebrows is that someone told them that they do….almost as if they are programmed to admire thick brows. Programmed. A scary thought indeed.

Now you may see the budding relationship growing between deep concepts and the phenomenon of my eyebrows. Every day girls are bombarded with marketing gimmicks and crap that programs them to think about what someone above them wants them molded into. The biggest question every girl capable of reading must ask herself every time a sign is shoved into her face is the following: "Who decides what I will like? Who is programming me?"

I will explain my title to you briefly. This analysis series is called "The Connection Between Psychology And Philosophy" for important reasons. The psychology category goes without saying- the objects we see are inputs for the products of our mind. Although, the philosophy part is incorporated when we begin to ask ourselves, "is it ethical to program people to be a certain way if it benefits the economic growth of a society?"

Many will say "of course not!", but if we are studying philosophy we must ask, "says who?!" If we have no standard beliefs then we have nothing to base wrong and right off of and therefore our arguments are weakened. The connection between psychology and philosophy sparks my curiosity to a degree that will keep me pursuing it as the weeks progress. The eyebrow phenomenon is deeper than a $5 pencil brow, it is the truth behind our identity- within the mind and soul- answering ultimate questions of "Are we even free?", "to what extent are we free?", and "What is freedom?"

Tune in next week for the second part of this series.