I Hate Beauty

Painting by Jarek Puczel

So my whole being has taken a very weird but interesting turn and it has completely changed my perspective on life and love and the understanding of both. A couple of months ago (more than two); I had to make what was possibly one of the biggest decisions of my life. The thing is, this decision not only changed my circumstances at the time, but also influenced all future endeavors I had envisioned for my life, at that time. My previous blog post, ‘Future’, is an extension of my thoughts in poetic form, surrounding that…

In the poem I am personifying the future with features that I find attractive in the opposite sex but it is much more than just that. When I took the decision to be single for a while, I did not anticipate for it to be such a big challenge. Because I love the idea of love, I love being in love and I love being loved. But I have also realized that a human beings’ need to be with someone stretches far beyond than just holding hands, caring, loving and sharing. In my experience (not that it is very elaborate), relationships are an intricate blend of body, spirit and mind… so how can I, according to this poem, hate that someone is beautiful if it is part of the essential aspects of what makes up a relationship?  

It is so easy to just walk around and admire how beautiful God has made people (us) and as men it is probably more of a challenge for us not to notice that. Seeing a beautiful girl is such an easy indulgence for us men and to be tempted and lured into that is just as easy, if we allow ourselves to be… Men, we fall in love with our eyes first then our hearts then our minds. How can we allow that? How can we allow ourselves to get moved by what we see and run with just that…? Hence my journey at the moment, though tough, calls for me to remain single and enjoy the journey of the exploration of it. I had decided to turn a blind eye to beauty so as not to get distracted by it, but that has not been easy…so I ended up hating beauty. I hate beauty. It sucks. And with it so does humour; and good conversation. So please just get out of my face you beautiful, funny intelligent being.  I hate you(not really).

 

On the real though I am afraid of hating beauty so much that it ends up turning me into a bitter, sad and cynical human being.  At the same time, I am also dreading missing out on meeting ‘the one’ that I taunt and play around with the idea of beauty, and all that it offers, and I get to know it. I am amused by the idea because, who wants to be alone? I end up entertaining the idea so much so to the point where I am like – well could this be it? Could this be the one? And often we know that it is not. This constant taunting have made me realize that at times, the fooling around, allows us to find so many likenesses in the other person that it can completely blind us from the realness of what it is – and that is that it is nothing and won’t and should not ever be, yet still we like it. We like being important to someone, it makes us feel significant. We choose to see what we choose to see and even if what that is, is as ugly as we are, our need to be complete, completely disregards what could have been avoided. So we end up operating on emotion, the biggest deceiver of all. We end up connecting emotionally, we communicate emotionally, we look emotionally thinking that whatever it is that we find emotionally is what we need to be whole, physically. And it is not. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t fall for any beautiful woman I see but the crux is that I can. I can allow myself to do so easily, whether or not I’m in a relationship but the choice still remains mine to decide.

Being single has taught me a couple of things, including that we are easily misled and deceived by our wants, our need to belong and just plain old loneliness. Allowing ourselves to be lured in by beauty, humour and great conversation driven by the same deceit, we allow ourselves to be misled by our emotions and tricked into situations that make our lives so difficult to steer that we feel we can’t let go of our emotional ‘anchors’. And that is mainly because we are in so deep, too deep. Emotions are important yes, I cannot disagree, physical interaction is also very important yes, but these on their own are not enough, and could never be enough. 

I had learnt this lesson, I had paid for this lesson, it can put you back so many steps but one does learn to get back up, better prepared, stronger and wiser. So this is what this poem is about for me, it’s about getting to know who I am and what triggers me to be intrigued and lured in, it’s about recognizing when I’m being led by my emotions and lastly it is about me looking at the future with my future in mind. Beauty and all its excitement must take a chill pill, I am busy looking out for me, and I need to enjoy me and my journey right now. So my future for now is single. Single bed, single meal; single man, single being - just me, happy me and free. For now…