Perception of Beauty

Perception of Beauty   

“Why see me, when you can see all the beauty around me?”

I chose to represent my image by not actually being the focus of the photo. I feel like I would rather people not strongly see my image, but instead see everything around me. I dont have the highest self esteem, so if people can see me, but primarily focus on the things around me, that’s how I’m comfortable living life. I like to be in the background, away from people's focus so that I can take in everything around me, as opposed to me. Society has a harsh image of beauty and personality and how they tie together so sometimes you have to step back and focus on what's around you. That's why I'd rather this image show the beauty and the color of the trees and nature around me instead.

    Society tends to say that personality is set in stone. When someone is born, they already have set characteristics that will carry them through their lives. They dont have the ability to pick and choose the characteristics they want to portray, but instead they are already stuck with them, good or bad, or both. Experts like Freud talk about multiple perspectives such as Id, Ego and Superego as controlling your personality. He claims that the Id is the hidden part of our conscious that we have no control over. It’s the part we are born with, the one that pays attention to only pleasure, with a lack of morals. Then, we have the ego; the ‘reality principle’ which has a large amount of conscious we have control over. It argues with the Id by being organized and rational. And finally, Freud claims we have a superego. The superego is thought to be our moral standards, but a large part of it is still hidden, showing we are not constantly aware of what's right and what's wrong, but the superego strives for perfection.

On the contrary, the podcast “The Personality Myth” by Invisibilia claims that personalities can have a shift or change, that people aren’t necessarily always set in their habits during the span of their entire life. After meeting an inmate in a prison she says “That idea [of how he acted previously] is inconsistent with the image I hold of him in my mind.” She had a bias of how she thought he would be before she met him, solely based on the fact he was in prison. Prior to the meeting, she wasn't even aware of the crime he committed, but she still felt a certain way about him due to the way they met. But when she really met him, he was not the man she expected. She says later in the podcast “That man was who he was, not who he is.” She felt that as he grew and matured, he realized what he did was wrong, and he learned from it, causing a shift in his personality and the way he chose to conduct his manors. The man he was at 18 when he committed the crime was no longer there in her eyes, instead it was placed with a man who was mature, kind and well rounded, despite living in prison for a vast majority of his life.

       "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” - A quote from Oliver Pratt rings some truth to me. Although personality may not be beauty, I feel it does correlate with it. I could tell you all the reasons I think that we have the ability to alter our personality, and you could still not believe any of it. Doctors and psychologists could throw lots of lots of verified info and you still wouldn’t believe it, but that’s okay you’re just bias in that way. I think for anyone to claim they have the exact same personality as they did a year ago is not true. As we grow, we experience more things in life, good and bad, that not only alter our views, they can subconsciously alter our personality. 3 years ago, if you asked me my views on 3rd world countries, it would not be the same answer now that I have traveled to one. My trips to Haiti have very much challenged the ways that I see the world, which is not an experience many people my age are fortunate to understand. That scenario has helped me realize there are multiple lenses or viewpoints to something simple, just like personality. I truly believe that as time goes on, our personalities adapt, and the changes in our personality help us become who we are.