Ugly
A radio station I listen to every day is having an "ugly" contest. They have asked their listeners to bring in items of great ugliness or, if the listeners themselves or certain of their body parts are truly hideous, they are encouraged to bring those down to the station so they can get their pictures snapped. A gallery of pictures has already accumulated on their website. I checked it out this morning. There are pictures of green, fungoid, toenails; rotting and/or rotted teeth; a placenta (I'm not kidding); really kitzschy and gross-looking statues and paintings; items of clothing; kids with chicken pox ... I could go on and on. We listeners are encouraged to vote for the ugliest whatever and the winner gets $8,888 dollars (or something like that).
There are some pretty gross pictures on there. But it started me thinking of what are the ugliest things to me. So here's a partial list, anyway, of my ugliest things:
* bulging, ready-to-pop zits (the really painful ones)
* underarm hair (especially the really abundant variety) NOTE: Although I've gone on record as being a fan of body hair, the underam locale is not one of my favourites
* sauerkraut (its appearance AND odour)
* tabloid covers plastered with pictures of celebrities I have no interest in hearing about
* ignorant people (I know this is very general, but I can narrow it down to people who judge or insult people they have no specific knowledge of)
* anything macrame (especially toilet paper roll cosies)
* those psycho socks with individual, different coloured toes
* socks encased by sandals
* any sock colour other than white (I guess I have a sock thing)
* pus
* bruised and/or old fruit
* used band-aids
* split ends and/or frizzy hair
* grown men who wear their hair in a pony tail, especially if it's capped off by a bald head (this is a biggie, I don't know why I didn't think of it till I was this far down the list)
* insects, but especially flying big ones
That's all I can think of for now. Here's a question: is there more beauty or ugliness in the world? I know what my answer is.
There are some pretty gross pictures on there. But it started me thinking of what are the ugliest things to me. So here's a partial list, anyway, of my ugliest things:
* bulging, ready-to-pop zits (the really painful ones)
* underarm hair (especially the really abundant variety) NOTE: Although I've gone on record as being a fan of body hair, the underam locale is not one of my favourites
* sauerkraut (its appearance AND odour)
* tabloid covers plastered with pictures of celebrities I have no interest in hearing about
* ignorant people (I know this is very general, but I can narrow it down to people who judge or insult people they have no specific knowledge of)
* anything macrame (especially toilet paper roll cosies)
* those psycho socks with individual, different coloured toes
* socks encased by sandals
* any sock colour other than white (I guess I have a sock thing)
* pus
* bruised and/or old fruit
* used band-aids
* split ends and/or frizzy hair
* grown men who wear their hair in a pony tail, especially if it's capped off by a bald head (this is a biggie, I don't know why I didn't think of it till I was this far down the list)
* insects, but especially flying big ones
That's all I can think of for now. Here's a question: is there more beauty or ugliness in the world? I know what my answer is.
posted by emily pound at 9:07 AM
3 Comments:
What an interesting list. I suspect my list wouldn't be quite so extensive and general. However, I found your final question, is there more beauty or ugliness in the world very interesting. The question is essentially one which can be interpreted in several ways. The first and simplest is to count up the number of beautiful and ugly things and see which number is higher. Assuming one could do this I have no idea what the outcome would be. The second way is to look at this in a weighted sense.. something extraordinarily ugly would count more than something only moderately or borderline ugly. Here, I think its quite clear that ugly generally maxes out pretty quickly but beauty has a high end that is so breathakingly, painfully profound that even a small oasis of beauty in a desert of ugliness would outweigh the ugliness. A third way would analyze what is meant by beauty and ugliness in more philosophical terms, and would eliminate anything that has an inherent physical appearance from being either.. only focusing on true beauty or ugliness which is human and internal to the shell of the person. Some of the most physically beautiful individuals are actually painfully ugly, vice versa and everything in between. One's outer appearance, the skin deep version of beauty, is a poor guide one way or another to the quality and beauty within. I have experienced profound beauty with individuals from breathakingly physically beautiful down to almost painfully unattractive physical specimens who are initially almost impossible to look at when one speaks to them. In these cases, however, after one knows the person better one ceases to see the outside shell in the same way. Here again, I have no idea if you add up the beautiful people and the ugly people(non-physical type) which would predominate. Fourth, is the non-physical beauty again weighted, as in Second. Here I would again be very comfortable in saying despite the intense ugliness in many people the good and beauty within some people is so off the charts positive that it would clearly outweigh any ugliness.
More than you wanted to hear?
PS I can't imagine how anyone could feel anything stronger than extreme bemusement and serious sighing on seeing another macrame toilet paper cosy.
PPS The ugliest thing to me... a closed mind.
Huge, you reminded me ... about the toilet paper cosies, I remember actually seeing matching macrame poodles next to them on the toilet tank. Those, and an abundance of doilies on every surface, are some of the most vivid memories of my childhood.
And Jennie, I thought of another one: mats of clotted hair from the bathtub/shower drain (I apologize if it's around dinnertime). :-)
Great choices, Jennie (for both). :-)
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