We take so much for granted. Being human is taken for granted. Sometimes, I take myself out of normal thinking to try and see what we’d look like to a nonhuman alien. Or to my cat. We define beauty by a certain proportion of our facial features. But a nose is a hairy appendage that has air blowing out of it. Our eyes are made out of some white slimy wet mess with a dark spot in the middle. We have eyelids that open and close constantly and curly hair around the perimeter. A gaping hole with white bones hanging down and red puffiness around it that chews food.
And what is skin? Smooth covering to keep our insides from falling out. Hairy heads, arms, and legs but not hairy bodies like most species. Straight hair, curly hair, sparse hair. We are all really strange looking from this perspective. So what is beauty? And how have we as these strange creatures created language? Moving the mouth and tongue to communicate in a multitude of different languages passed on from parent to child. We don’t roar like lions, cry like cats and dogs, bark, scream like monkeys. Why?
We breathe in the oxygen in the air and without it we would die. We need water or we will die. Food to eat. We eat the other animals on this planet or what grows from the ground or we would die. Just like the other animals do. But how are we different? Other animals take just what they need to subsist. They do not hoard. Eat when hungry don’t eat when they are not. Humans are singularly greedy. We hoard food, drink water until there is no more, but have a consciousness that can interpret our actions. And yet we don’t accept that we are using up the resources that we need to live and for all species who live on this planet. We have the power to destroy out habitat and we are doing just that. Rapidly.
Then what? Who will be around to decide what is beauty?
