“Aunty Seun, we can’t take that bike o”, Kemi lashed out in an alarming disgust that usually describes her ultimate repulsion. “Why?” I asked, not readily prepared for the forthcoming answer, She replied , “ The Okada Man is ugly”(Okada means motorbikes solely used for public transportation), as we went past a swarm of okada riders, jabbering out loudly in a bid to woo customers.

The above dialogue transpired between me and a certain younger friend of mine, to say I was bewildered, would be the understatement of the century.

For a moment as brief as a flicker of light, I became lost for words but went alongside her to get a motorbike man who -to her is better looking or good looking. I still wish i could get into the wires of her head and figure out why the external features of a man who we’ll likely forget, whose service was to move us from our inertia to our destination, seemed to be important to her.

Beauty, according to Plato “is in the eyes of the beholder”,Though I agree with him, I believe this quote has more than a meaning, regardless of the fact that it has been accepted as far as oratory and literary contexts are concerned, i do not however think that people fully understand this, Below are my perceived interpretations of Plato’s quote.

Beauty can be discerned by someone or people(beholder) who finds a certain attribute in the object(Note: Objects describe all elements including people) beautiful which means, the beholder has always had a notion of what ‘beautiful’ is to him. This suggests that the beholder is in fact the object’s mirror, and can only be the judge of beauty based on whatever yardstick he decides to use.

I sincerely hope people translate it as the bullet point 1, but there seems to be a sort of disconnect between the world- renowned statement and the reality of the world we live in. The truth is, as humans we all get attracted to the extrinsic properties of beauty, especially as regards our fellow humans(which is absolutely normal and acceptable), but to make it the benchmark by which we make our judgments and decisions that affect not only our lives but also the lives of others, is (to be said mildly) UNFORGIVABLE AND IRRATIONAL.

Beauty should of course, be relative and the relativity based on what appeals to you as an individual, but we unfortunately live in a ‘contrasting-century’, a period that the media dictates practically everything suitable to and for us, making it extremely difficult for people to find out their unique selves and explore beauty in others.TV screens and all forms of media are filled with extremely attractive people who are models of what an average person aspire to be like, they define what is beautiful according to their terms, thereby, influencing and eventually, giving unattainable illusions to people.

I might sound somewhat naive and unrealistic, but I am one of the populace who has been blinded and illusioned by pop culture at some point, I remembered, I never thought it, an option to wear my hair natural, because the society dictates that to being dirty or belonging to a particular religious sect but by no way means beautiful. Our values, of course, determine how we determine what is or seems beautiful to us( but values will be discussed in another post).

You might wonder, “What about objects that are undeniably beautiful”? I would like to think that to mean ‘extrinsic beauty’, we can of course appreciate the extrinsic properties of beauty and aspire for it( sincerely, who doesn’t), but in our judgment of beauty, we should always remember to be conscious that beauty has both extrinsic and intrinsic properties, the latter by the way, is what we uniquely define based on our values and it hardly fades out.

So, how would I describe Beauty? Beauty is been bold and courageous enough to be yourself in this age of political correctness and justified compromise, Beauty is the innocence of children, Beauty is integrity and honesty, Beauty is the ability to be objective, Beauty is the greenness of plants that are found in the country areas, Beauty is ability to fall in love with the features you
were born with, Beauty is the sound of ocean waves on the beach, Beauty is also structures of skyscrapers in cities around the world.

Beauty is the shared laughter with genuine friends, Beauty is the unconditional love of one’s family, also the sleekness of convertible cars and houses at high-end estates like Lekki, VGC and Ajah in Nigeria. Beauty is what you define objects to be based on your values, not what others(society,media and your peers) think of them and most importantly, its extrinsic and intrinsic.

Ciao.

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Seun Ayorinde, a graduate of Computer science and an aspiring writer and documentary filmmaker, can be reached via Twitter account: @seunayorinde