Anyway, since telling any casual acquaintance of mine that they are beautiful in person seems uncharacteristically forward of me, I decided to do the next best thing and write a blog post about it. So, you are beautiful!
How do I know? Well, for starters I am of the opinion that most other people are good looking, yes, that includes you guys, I wouldn't call you attractive, but rather aesthetically pleasing. Secondly, I find that my appreciation of a person's appearance is correlated with how interesting I consider them as a person. Since you are still reading this post, I am inclined to think you find abstract thought and identity issues interesting, therefore you probably are an interesting person. Ergo, you are beautiful!
Body image is a tricky thing. Last summer I made some modest lifestyle changes for health reasons that, as an incidental side effect, caused me to lose some weight. When this happened I began to hope that, should I lose enough weight, I might gain some self confidence. However, the rational part of my mind soon pointed out that I have always considered myself the "fat kid," and no matter what I look like, as long as I am the "fat kid" in my mind, my personality is unlikely to be altered significantly.
We, especially women, are exposed to unrealistic and unhealthy standards of appearance in our culture. I think it is important that we support each other in attempting to achieve health, not some unimportant number like weight or waistline. As a professional mathematician, I will let you know that there are a lot of very important numbers, your weight is not among them.
3 comments:
Very nice post!
"Ergo, you are beautiful!" Only you would go through those logical steps. You made me laugh out loud.
Even women (and probably men) who are small and healthy will still most likely question their beauty. For me, it is also difficult to truly understand when I am at a good weight. Even though I know that I'm at a healthy weight, I still have a part of me that feels like I am the chubby girl that I was before losing weight.
As a note, I'm not discouraging you from getting to a healthy weight. Being healthier has made me feel better every day whether or not I question my beauty. I also wouldn't mind having my brother around for a lot more years if possible. :)
Being overweight has probably helped you to be able to be more sensitive to other people, and that has made you an even more beautiful person. That's pretty awesome.
I agree! Let's support each other in a journey to be healthy! However, let us behold the beauty in people that is not dependent on arbitrary standards of society!
I love this post. I may not always comment, but I do always read your posts and find them interesting. I love the concept of telling people they're beautiful, it's something that everyone needs to hear sometimes.
Karen: I find logic trustworthy in a manner that mere words fail to be.
Clover: I must admit to not reading many of your review posts, due to a nagging guilt about reading about a book before I have actually read the book. However, the ones that are not prefaced with REVIEW I read, and very much enjoy! I'm glad that you get some enjoyment in return from what I write!
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