When I was 15, I went on a summer trip with my family to Costa Rica. At several points during our sightseeing, my mom would ask “isn’t this beautiful?”, and my response was always along the lines of “sure, I guess”. On the beach near we were staying, my mom asked me the same question and got a similar answer. She then asked me something different – I can’t remember exactly what it was, but the gist of it was that she wanted to know why I wasn’t impressed by the nature that surrounded us. My response was that I just don’t see it. I just didn’t see what’s so beautiful about the beach. It wasn’t too different from the beaches in Texas, aside from the palm trees and slightly different texture of the sand beneath my feet.
I don’t see beauty like other people do. I don’t exactly become awestruck by an environment, or by people’s appearances. I just don’t get it.
To me, beauty is in complexity. Complexity that is obvious and functional is the best. A system that consists of other systems that work in tandem is beautiful.
That’s not to say nature isn’t complex – there are hundreds of natural systems that brought the beach to how it was in that moment; the erosion of the sand, and the evolution that developed the coconuts on the ground. Nature is beautiful in that way. I just couldn’t see it in that moment.
People are very complex. Our brains alone are so complex they are beyond our understanding or comprehension. To me, a beautiful person is someone who finds success and fulfillment in their personal goals, in spite of being a complicated amalgamation of their past, living in this often-unfair world, having to maintain themselves, and infinitely many other factors and systems.