3 Things That Make Beautiful, Beautiful

What makes Beautiful, Beautiful?

For example, you can’t deny that this sunset is beautiful, can you?

It’s a question that I have brought up time and again on this blog. It’s a question that occupies an entire chapter in my book (for the unitiated, it’s called Beauty Queen — Pathway to Pageantry and it’s available on Amazon — https://tinyurl.com/3yh3u2nh)

What is beauty? What makes something beautiful, beautiful? Why do we find certain things attractive and other things not?

And so far, I have answered that question (or rather, attempted to) primarily in terms of physical beauty. But let’s beyond the barriers of being human. Why do we find one thing, whatever it is, more beautiful than the other? Broadly here, we break down the reasoning into two parts — subjective and objective.

Subjective beauty is well, subjective. It is the beauty that (as Plato is said to have said) is in the eyes of the beholder. It depends on many things. It depends on where you are from (for example, you are more likely to find an exaggerated hourglass figure attractive if you are from South America than if you are from East Asia). It depends on your economic condition (you might be more likely to find someone dressed in Zara more attractive if you are middle class or working class than if you come from the Kardashians’ economic stature). It might even depend on what you get from that situation (imagine a kindergartener falling in love with his kindergarten teacher!).

But objective beauty is a whole different ball game. Objective Beauty is pure wiring. A person who moves from Vietnam to Colombia might, over time, unconsciously, re-evaluate his/her guidelines for what s/he considers beautiful. But there are certain rules, beyond that, that are immutable. Darwin liked to call it ‘taste for the beautiful’. These laws (for that is what they are) are embedded in our very DNA. And it is assumed, quite logically so too, that these have their basis in symmetry (leading to), fitness (leading to), survival (leading to), fertility (leading to), propagation of desirable genes. And none of that makes us evil, manipulative or superficial. That is just how we are wired. Just like we are wired to eat, drink and sleep [i].

To put it in a nutshell, Subjective beauty is just that, subjective. But objective beauty plays by certain rules. And to put it broadly, most rules seem to have something to do with survival. So is it the survival instincts so hardwired in us that determine what we find beautiful? Perhaps. But let us explore it further before deciding one way or the other.

Well, obviously, symmetry does not always work. This image is perfectly symmetrical, but it makes absolutely zero sense!

Symmetry — Imagine a wonky set of stairs, however richly decorated. Each step has its own shape, its own depth, its own width, its own height. Now right beside it is another flight of stairs. Each step is the same height, the same width and the same depth. No difference at all. It goes straight up to the landing in front of you. Straight, even, parallel, there is a beauty to it, even without fancy barristers and chandeliers. It is symmetrical. Which one would you take home?

I hear what you’re saying now. Just because, you say, you choose the boring symmetrical flight of stairs home doesn’t mean that you don’t find the wonky staircase beautiful too. Well, perhaps. Or perhaps, that is just our habit of being fair speaking. Think about it. When we find something that we think is beautiful, the instinct usually is to possess it, is it not? Call it the Alauddin Khilji complex, if you will. But that instinct exists in all of us. Whether we act on that instinct or not, or rather — how we choose to act on makes all the difference.

Coming back to the staircase, one would choose survival 8 out of 10 times. Not always, of course. There are always exceptions and that is why subjective beauty also exists. But most of the time, yes.

But does this mean that survival instincts are what make beautiful, beautiful? Perhaps. But for now, let us move on to the other parameters before deciding entirely.

How, for example, would you decide this photo is fit for survival? Or that it is the most effecient at doing its job?

Fitness — How do we decide something is fit? Well, we see how well it will survive, or will aid survival. This applies more to human beauty than any other kind of beauty. But of course, not always. A symmetrical staircase, one might argue, is more fit than a wonky one. Simply because it does its job more efficiently Again, this is heavily linked to survival. And we have one more point for survival being what makes beautiful, beautiful.

Ok, here it makes sense. The photo shows a beautiful sunset, with vegetation in the background and a human in the foreground. Nothing says fertile earth better than that. So perhaps, survival really is the key to beauty.

Fertility — Ok, this one is easy. Imagine a green fruit laden mango tree. And next imagine a barren skeleton of a tree. Six out of ten of us would probably find the green fruit laden mango tree more beautiful. I say probably, and I keep the count low because fruit laden trees are not so imperative to our sense of survival anymore. Our food doesn’t really come from trees anymore does it, it comes from our supermarkets (never mind the fact that it comes to the supermarkets from trees and plants. That is too far a connection for our brain to make on an existential basis).

So let us imagine instead a sparkling clean steel and chrome supermarket aisle, filled to the brim with shiny, juicy, fruits and veggies. Now in the same breath, imagine a defunct, empty, rusty supermarket aisle. Which looks more beautiful?

See? See what I mean? Survival wins again.

Survival wins three out of three. And so, there should be no doubt as to what makes beautiful, beautiful? It is mathematical with a solid scientific biological basis.

But what about that painting that you just came across the other day. Perhaps it was Da Vinci, perhaps it was Picasso, perhaps it was a new undiscovered artist. What about that? Why was that beautiful? What was so survival driven in that?

What about that poem you read the other day? The novel you simply couldn’t put down? The song you heard on the radio while driving to work? Why were those beautiful? How exactly did it assure or add to our survival?

That’s just it, it didn’t. The interesting thing is that as a rule, we humans don’t find any of these things even interesting (let alone beautiful) until and unless our survival is assured. A starving man doesn’t give a hoot about the beauty of Shakespeare. For him, that plate of food you hold in your hand is the most beautiful thing in the world. So beauty is indeed survival driven, but just until our survival is threatened (sometimes just until our mind believes that our survival is threatened)

But once survival is surpassed (either psychologically or existentially), beauty tends to move on to other pastures. Just what exactly are those pastures are what must now be explored. But that remains a topic for yet another article.