Beautiful Inside

I'm strange
And you're strange
Don't want you to change
No way

This comes from a song called You're So True from the Shrek 2 soundtrack. I find these words really interesting. They somehow remind me of the message that the movie series carries. The message being that a person's (or ogre's, for that matter!!!) inner beauty is way more important than what appears on the surface. The external appearance is evanescent, it doesn't last. But what is inside is what really matters, what really decides how good a friendship or romantic relationship you can have with that person. A really idealistic message, I'd have to say. Because, you know, we do tend to form a basic impression about a new person we meet based on their appearance. It's only human. It would take a hypnosis of the Shallow Hal kind to make an average guy go out with a remarkably unattractive girl. And there are no feminist views being aired here, this is also true for girls going out with unattractive guys. I mean, I know that what I really want is a guy who's understanding and wants the same things in life as I do. Just needs to be reasonably okay looking so I can see his face everyday without being turned off. But I'll still tend to run after the attractive ones. (For my dear friends from my undergraduate days: I know that the guys I find attractive are also the ones you gals generally find weird; and vice-versa. Referring to the ones I find good-looking.) It takes a while to figure out that I was running after the wrong guy. That's a separate story really. I'll do another post some time about how I always run after the wrong guys.

So, coming back to the point of this post, why do appearances matter so much to us? Well, it's a bit of basic animal instinct. You know how a pea-hen will always want to mate with the most beautiful peacock she can lay her hands (claws, should that be?) on? Because she wants a good, beautiful, strong brood of tiny peacocks breaking out of the eggs that she lays. And that's the right thing for her to do, because a large part of the reason for her existence is, basically, procreation. That's what all animals do. They mate. They mate like bunnies (!!!). But that's not what we do, you know. We're humans. We're supposedly more intelligent than all the peacocks and rabbits and chimps and dolphins out there. We need a lot more than just the offspring from our mates. We need companionship, support, understanding, love, affection, and well... lots more probably. So our priorities are different. Shrek loved Fiona just as much when she looked like an ogre as he did when she was a beautiful princess. Because he knew that, inside, she was the same person. And that person was his soul mate. Someone who could tolerate all his idiosyncrasies and still get up early in the morning to find eggs for his breakfast. That's what we all need. Someone who knows how crazy we can be at times, but always remembers that at heart, we're nice. And knows just when and how to do something nice for us. Because, you know, just like Shrek and Fiona, we're all a little strange. And we need someone strange to appreciate us in all our strangeness.