Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Golden Boy

left: me, right: me after photoshop

I once watched a documentary on the objectivity of human beauty and how we are all universally attracted to certain facial proportions based on the golden ratio.  Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to try and see how my face fared under this particular set of standards by overlaying Marquardt's Beauty Mask over my own face.  As I predicted, I did not measure up...not even close.  Then my curiosity prompted me to manipulate my facial features in photoshop to fit the measurements of the mask... just to see if I indeed would look more attractive.  After I finished, I actually started laughing...partially because I realized that I have way too much time on my hands, but more so because I looked like a completely different person.  I guess if the average person were to compare the two photos above, they would probably find the image on the right more attractive.  The funny thing is that if I did look like Tim v2.0, I would still be the same person underneath...maybe with a few more Facebook friends and prettier packaging.

I would be lying if I said I didn't want to look more like the photo on the right.  But I also feel a slight revulsion at the idea of not looking like myself anymore.  Somehow, looking "perfect" does not equate with looking the way I'm supposed to.  

In the end, this was all a very silly endeavor just to entertain myself at 2 AM.  God made me the way he made me and anything short of plastic surgery cannot change that.  If the choice came down to looking "beautiful" or looking like me, I think I would choose to look like me...with all my less than ideal facial proportions.  And besides, the person on the right kind of looks like an alien.