(A reaction paper to the keynote speech by Dr. Ignacio, delivered October 15, 2010, Manila Ocean Park Hotel in the Psychiatry Department's Post Graduate Course: Beauty and the Brain)
by Carla Mae. R. Robles. M.D.
After listening to Dr. Ignacio's key note speech last November 15, 2010, I remember feeling like having just finished reading a book you can't put down. Not too intensive that you can imagine your neurons dying away, but just light enough that you know you're absorbing something significant and refreshing and that you're listening to something you know you will keep with you for a long, long time. You get new insight into things you thought you already knew a lot about. You feel the imaginary reels and wheels start to turn and churn in your brain again, like the Wizard of Oz's Tin Man who has been stuck in one position for since who knows when, and then suddenly somebody comes with an oil can to his joints. The whole event for me, was refreshing and a welcome exercise.
I'm not an expert on beauty. I know that. So I was at a loss in trying to come up with this paper because I didn't feel qualified to react on issues of physical beauty in the first place. My mother advised me to react with the things I do know, so as I could be sincere. So here goes.
I don't agree with the general idea that someone beautiful would most likely be brainless. I have two beautiful sisters with the Chinese-Mestiza looks, slim and trim figures, all of which evaded me from the gene pool, and academic achievement awards throughout their educational years to leave me no doubt that beauty and brains can, in fact, come in one and the same package. Though it is also true that some beautiful people do tend to neglect the less superficial aspects of their person, anyone who would ever doubt that someone beautiful can also carry inside her head a fund of knowledge comparable to a library of encyclopedias is, in my opinion, greatly underestimating the omnipotence of our Maker.
I'm 28 years old but I still get entertained by superhero television series, particularly the dark and elusive Batman of Gotham City. I cannot quote any beauty specialist and claim competence in standing up for their statements, but I can, with confidence, talk of this. I find Batman quite an irony and a challenge to the general concept of good versus evil, where the good guy is a crusader in black who lurks in dark corners while the bad guy, his arch nemesis, the Joker, is a colorful clown with magic tricks: an image that's supposed to represent lightness of heart, laughter in children and general good will. A farce, some would say, to remind us that not all outward appearances of beauty and happiness and vivid colors are always as what they seem.
But that is not all. If some people think that all cartoon series are shallow, they should think again. There is an episode of the Batman Series where Batman pursued a masked female villain whose modus operandum disfigures the faces of supermodels and famous actresses out of spite. This female villain was said to have been abused by prettier but mean playmates as a child, leaving her with a very disfigured face and perhaps an even more disfigured sense of self image, which eventually led her to nurture vengeful feelings towards beautiful women in general. The catch and the relevance of this story is that when Batman finally caught her, she was eventually unmasked, and what he saw behind the mask was one of the most beautiful faces he has ever seen.
“But she's beautiful!” gasped Robin, as he and Batman watched the cops making their arrest.
“Yes, she is,” sighed Batman, “but she cannot see that.”
And, like shadows, they both disappeared into the night.
Hence, beauty is in the brain of the beholder indeed.
It is something like religion, I think. Some people worship the beautiful. But more so that when you talk of beauty and the underlying currents that flow beneath the superficiality, you find that you can spend a whole post-graduate course in a classy hotel with an ocean theme, discussing the intricate details and probing into the principles and still find yourself sufficiently baffled by the end of the day, no matter how much you have actually learned. It's a mystery, and we are human that way.
We are also human in that none of us are perfect. None of us would fall perfectly into place if we measure ourselves against that template of beauty that people and culture have cut out for us. I don't think even the real Cindy Crawford could measure up to the spray painted version of her in the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine. And the truth is, I don't think it matters. What matters is that we are able to develop a stable sense of self where we could accept even our flaws as beautiful and as integral parts of who we are. The two inch scar on my right knee, for instance, holds for me the memory of a sharp rock digging deep into my skin after a fall from a bike and the afterimage of my own blood oozing down my leg. It's a scary sight for a 7 year old and I remember being warned by my caretakers that when I become a woman and start fretting over my complexion, I will forever look back upon that day with regret. They were right, at some point in time, but with that memory also comes the image of my father smiling at me with irreplaceable pride for finally learning to balance myself on a two wheeled contraption. At that very moment, I was the most beautiful little girl I have ever known.
There is a novel called Five Quarters of an Orange, where the heroine is a french and female version of the American Tom Sawyer. Her mother, a fabulous cook, but a severe, disciplinarian woman, forbids oranges in the house because they trigger for her severe and disabling migraines. So our heroine secretly hides oranges in the house so she could induce her mother into locking herself up in her room and leaving her children free to wander off and play. This character grew up knowing she was far from beautiful as her mother never showed her the same affection that was shown her sister, who was prettier. But when she was a grown woman, basking in the arms of the man she loves, recalling the events of her childhood, she understands that it wasn't at all important that she wasn't the Spring Queen after all, because, as she said so herself: “Any woman can be beautiful in the eyes of a man who loves her.”
So, what I did to demonstrate my own thoughts after listening to the keynote speech is present two contrasting faces of beauty. One is a beautiful villainess who believes she is ugly. The other a relatively plain and comely heroine who discovers she is beautiful. The more important difference lies not in how they actually look or how they fall into that template of beauty that has plagued womankind since time immemorial, but on the basic psychological issues that dance beneath the surface. Issues which set minds to work. Issues that made Kaplan and Saddock famous. Issues, that affect the person beyond the issue of beauty.
It was not Raymond Isaac, I think, who made the keynote speaker and her colleagues look “beautiful” in that last picture, because a photographer cannot put into a face what isn't there. He can only bring out what's already there to begin with. I think it is the belief of the people in the photograph that they are worthy of a Raymond Isaac that made the photograph work.
To end this feeble attempt at a concrete reaction to a more integrated keynote speech, I would like to say thank you for the opportunity of being a part of the department even for just a while. It was an experience I would not exchange for anything. An opportunity, without which, I would not have had the necessity to write this reaction paper in the first place. :)
Thank you and God bless.
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