THE real 100th

ON BEAUTY

I think there are two types of beauty.

The easier kind is inherited beauty. Youth and its accessories. Flawless skin, toned muscles, bright eyes, silken hair. Also, the ageless genetic gifts of symmetry, grace, and form.

While I cannot help but appreciate inherited beauty, I do not respect it as much as the other type of beauty.

Earned beauty. Laugh lines, scars, stretch marks, tattoos, the folding wrinkles of age. These are marks life leaves on the body. A roadmap of a body’s temporal path. Each crease tells a story, each scar a mark of honor.

I’m perplexed by people who buy jeans, or boots, and scuff and distress them right away. Better they should enjoy the inherited beauty of them new, and as life works on them, the earned beauty will shine through. Be patient. Appreciate it. The process is as important as the destination. Earn it.

The same as our bodies age. Enjoy the beauty and blush of youth, but also the patina and mystery of age. Be young and beautiful. Be old and beautiful.

You were given a body. But have you earned it yet?

By Clayton Cubitt