For most college students, the dreaded season of finals has arrived. I am lucky enough to only have three final tests, two final projects and four final papers to prepare.
To those of you with more, I wish you the best of luck and give you so much credit. Go you!
For one of these papers and projects, I was assigned to create a utopian society based on one sole value and four upholding pillars. (A little background information, a utopian society is more of an idea than an actual possibility, but it’s super interesting to conceptualize and design). I had the utmost difficulty choosing one value to base my society on, however, I did end up choosing one that would be a perfect fit for me. Being an art and sociology major, the value I chose was the beauty of life itself and the pillars upholding it: art, education, tradition and relationships.
If you’re interested in the more detailed inner workings of the community I designed, feel free to contact me and I’ll tell you all about it.
Anyway, while in the process of completing these final assignments, I came upon a few profound realizations.
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. Simple and sweet, it’s utterly true. It seems a little whimsical for me to design a civilization based on the concept of beauty, but that is because the idea of what beauty is, is so far distorted that it is virtually unattainable.
What is the first thing you picture in your mind when I say the word beauty? What even is beauty? Straight from Google comes this definition of beauty, “Something extraordinary." How sad is it that the world has taught us to first think of only things we see as beautiful?
Beauty is not only seen, it’s so much more than that. It is not simply a definition of appearance or a cry for attention. Beautiful things do not ask for attention. Beautiful things enrich all of our human senses. It is heard, tasted, smelled, touched, and what is even more of a blessing, it is experienced! Beauty is something you can immerse yourself in and, if life is beautiful, you can immerse yourself in life as well. What does this mean? Even if you don’t know your exact purpose in life, you can still live life to the fullest. You can still seek out the beauty in all of life’s corners.
It shouldn’t require one of the seven wonders of the world to take your breath away. You were intelligently designed by a creator. That is beautiful. There are people in the world that love you. That is beautiful. Fresh air fills your lungs and is a part of you when you breathe. That is beautiful. The sound that bubbles out of children’s bellies when they laugh, that is beautiful. The color claiming anything you see around yourself, that is beautiful. Steaming water rinsing away the worries of the day in a warm shower, that is beautiful.The music made from a rainfall, that is beautiful. Life is beautiful, and beauty is so much more than we recently have given it credit to be.
Beauty is all around us, always has been and always will be. It is whether or not we choose to acknowledge this that makes all the difference.
