 |
| 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.
