top of page
Writer's picturePeriwinkle Seljord

An Old Perspective On Beauty

From January 23rd, 2020...


I find many things beautiful — flowers, circles, silence — but nothing is quite as beautiful to me as a nude person.

I tell myself that I love the human form because it is so simple, or at least I am drawn to simple bodies. And, yet, I must acknowledge that they are actually quite complex. If they were truly so simple, they wouldn’t have variance. It would be easy to make a new human out of a few, simple parts and expect relatively the same, simple result. We couldn’t fall in love with one, specific body (or maybe a few) for their idiosyncratic reasons. We wouldn’t be ashamed of our bodies because we’d be essentially hating everyone else’s that society has likely told us is beautiful. Although, we’d likely find something to despise, as is human nature. We also probably wouldn’t experience the individually tailored myriad of emotions that are produced by the sight of a body, specifically a nude one.

But, despite these statements, I still am fascinated by the “simplicity.” Actually, a better word would be “calmness.” Calling a human body “calm” is, of course, an oxymoron because, historically, it creates chaos and discord. But, it’s just… there. It’s a gentle piece of nature, just like the flowers, silence and circles. And, like anything else in nature, it will eventually calmly wither, die and disintegrate into the ground. (Except for plastic. Plastic is loud, obnoxious and fucking disruptive.)

I’m attracted to the body’s complicated and somewhat incomprehensible simplicity. Yes, bodies are incomprehensible. We may be a product of evolution (according to Darwin) and appear to follow a certain set of natural laws, but there are parts of our bodies that we will never fully grasp. Those parts are too varied and evolve too quickly for even Darwin to understand and record. In fact, they shouldn’t be. We should just let them be in their tranquil worlds. We should let their presence confuse us and create all the disorder.

So, I guess you could say I’m actually attracted to chaos.


21 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!

Sexual expression and health are central to the human experience. Our sexuality creates life, pleasure, bonding and identity, and...

Embrace the Naked

Why is sex interesting, Wallace Shawn? Because it’s confusingly immaculate. In his essay, “Why is Sex Interesting?” Shawn proposes...

Comments


Post: Blog2 Post
bottom of page