Human Beauty and Our Attitudes

One of my favorite personalities in history, Abraham Lincoln had said, "all of us are the children of conditions, of circumstances, of environment, of education, of acquired habits and of heredity, molding men as they are and will for ever be”.

 I want to discuss one thing that affects our behaviors with other people; our perception of our beauty and other's attitude in this regard towards us.

Almost all humans have inborn appreciation of beauty and they first find it in themselves since childhood when others praise them with such words

“What a beautiful kid!” “Good boy/girl” “Little angel!” and so on. These words have some positive and negative affects on our personality if not carefully monitored and guided by elders. Normally if the parents are normal- looking people, they represent their children showily before others. This makes them further perceptible about their outstanding looks.

When children join school, they receive more or less attention from their fellow students and teachers based on their beauty. In teen agers, this attitude reaches its peek point when sexual attraction adds to it.

Physical attractiveness has some benefits.

1.    It enhances self-esteem and develops self-confidence.

2.    It helps communicating with others. Beautiful children are normally less shy if they have no other physical or mental handicap like a stammer in talk, squinting eyes etc.

3.    As attractive persons have the plus point of good looks, if they have acquired some academic achievements, they are able to get good jobs making use of the above mentioned points.

4.    Usually their beauty is transmitted into their children if the spouse is not very ugly.

The negative aspects of physical beauty might be

1.    Superiority complex and the resulting scornful attitude towards others - mostly ugly people.

2.    Sometimes extraordinary beautiful people owing to their abnormally high self-confidence are unable to focus on their education and personality-enhancing things like good manners, style of conversation, personal hygiene etc.

3.    They expect victory in every field, and when they have to face failure, its overall result might be severe personality disorder. Stories presented in our films, TV dramas and novels etc are also behind this tradition of misleading the people. Heroes and heroines are normally represented as beautiful. In reality, history tells that most great men of the world were not necessarily beautiful people.

In my opinion the role of parents and teachers is very important about this issue. They need to tell their children that

·        One should be proud of ones personal achievements not those things which are out of their control.

·        All humans are equal. Is the blood of ugly people of some different color other than red? Beauty is an outward, apparent thing the real beauty is ones’ thoughts, morality and respect for others.

And to the elders, I request them to treat all the children alike. All the children deserve love, care and attention. Please never distribute these things in quotas; you don’t have to spend money on these minor but very important gifts of civilization.

One Out of Six Billions

one out of six billions

When I started writing on fiction and non fiction themes, my first impression was “this is a rat race”. There are tens of thousands of seasoned and budding writers that have written a lot. How shall l ever be able to give myself an identity? On the internet, there are billions of sites offering already what is in my mind. Creating a blog for the first time, and then using all the tactics of traffic generation - all of these thoughts were nerve-racking. But I’m an optimist. My first view was the negative side of the coin. Here are my positive points.

·         I’m a unique person among 6 billion people of this world in the following ways.

I am unique by my facial features: Some other persons may exist that might resemble me to some extent. But there is no 'Replica' of me. In addition, there are so many dissimilarities even in physique like stature, weight, type of the body, complexion and so on. Only some twins may be just alike but they too, think differently.

·         I am unique by my personality: Have you ever seen two trees of the similar type just alike? I think you’d never! In spite of the fact that the trees or on the same ground, they receive same types of nutrients from the ground, absorb the same subsurface water, CO² from the atmosphere, but no tree is identical to any of the other in height, branches and look. 

·         My style of writing is different in the similar way from other persons of my field, like the way whatever I speak, my words, my rhythm, my expressions and voice are different from any other person on the planet. If everyone were able to combine the words from a huge dictionary in a meaningful way, it was a lot easier for everyone with the help of computers and new software to write a good piece of poetry or prose.

·         Fiction is the work of imagination, ideas, personal beliefs and a deep understanding of human behaviors on the grounds of different fields of knowledge. Most of us daydream but the heroes and heroines are ourselves. What we want to say to people, if we are unable to say, we release those repressed streams in our imagination. In my personal view, everyone can write fiction if he or she possesses a certain level of vocabulary in their language, is able to transform their imaginative talk into dialogue. As to the subjects, stories and characters, these are numerous. They are found around us. When I start writing (mostly fiction), I have no clear idea what the end would or should be. It’s the arbitrary, automatic flow that decides the direction itself such as in the case of a downpour. My mind behaves like a spring. What will its water do with the obstructions, only time will tell! What can I do, is to give it maximum momentum from my personal knowledge and experiences and the ones that I’ve acquired from my fellow beings.

Note:  I’ve use the pronoun “I” symbolically. I’ll be much happier if you replace it with “you”.

    

   

Happiness and Satisfaction

The playful child

Happiness is a state of mind when one is high in spirits, has optimistic feelings about oneself and\or the world around him or her, and generally a sense of satisfaction. It can be compared with sadness or depressive state of mind when the opposite feelings exist. Extreme happiness and extreme gloom are rarer occasions when metabolic functions of the body are in abnormal conditions. In the cases of extreme happiness, increased heart rate and pulse resulting in high BP, difficulty in speaking, difficulty in concentration of the mind on another matter\issue are normally observed. In severe grief, a decrease in palpitation, pulse and low BP are clinical symptom. Difficulty in speaking, inability to concentrate on other matters except the one that caused mental shock, are similar in nature to euphoria’s.

I think this was a bit diversion from the title of the article but a brief discussion of the both was necessary. Transitory effects of extreme grief and extreme joy are normally ‘dangerous’ to people with heart and nervous system diseases. After the transitory period, happiness turns to be beneficial, both for the individual and the social group. While effects of grievances may sometimes go to the level of total loss of interests in life; if not lessened over time they may lead to death of the individual and trauma for the social group.

Now we focus on our subject: Happiness and Satisfaction

In my personal opinion, happiness and sadness are two extremes on a scale, while satisfaction is more than midway between towards the happiness. If we depict happiness on a scale of hundred positive points and sadness on 100 negative points on the same scale, satisfaction would be more than at +1 point.

Achievement of Happiness

Your and mine life would be bleak, dull and monotonous if it’s without happiness. To live a happy and satisfied life is an art; it has been a major topic of discussion for philosophers, prophets, theologians, sociologists and people from so many walks of life. It is also a philosophical discussion too yet we can generalize this discussion, categorizing it for simplicity in an effort to find some tips and ideas to achieve this end.

Whether you are a believer or an atheist, whatever is your religion, you’ll agree with me that you cannot live a happy and contented life when you are guilty of a moral crime – though legal or illegal may or may not be. Your conscience should not be burdened with any wrong. I have found no more better ethical code than this one.Live and let others live. This strategy is neutral; we and you need to be positive – more than the neutral. What I want to say that you cannot be happy unless and until you make others happy too. This is a very noble cause. Some people realize it later in life, some so much early as childhood. There are so many philanthropists in the world who are regarded as avatars by many – those who have benefited from them or not. Remember that to be a good man, you need not money. You can help others in so many ways. Give a person real happiness daily and see how the meaning of your life changes overnight.

• Goal-setting in terms of priority and duration is very important. When you set goals, you energize yourself for the tasks. Seek out ways to accomplish those tasks. Every time when you make an accomplishment, it gives you pleasure. Builds confidence in you that you can do harder, more time-consuming tasks. When this routine forms into a habit, it not only can do wonders but it gives you extreme sense of satisfaction. Then the goal matters less, but the endeavor to make it keeps you happy and satisfied.
• Leisure, your interests and pastimes. Work is no doubt important, but leisure is also in which you do those activities which give you pleasure like seeing a movie, a recreational trip with your love/family/friends, listening music etc. Such activities free your mind of the worries and pressure of the job/task that you have undertaken