Personally, I believe that beauty is found on the inside, which is contrary to what most of society believes. Society finds beauty in what they can see with their own eyes rather than the meaning or story behind the object or person itself. Armstrong comes across with the same opinion when he states. “To regard beauty as a luxury adornment or a social signifier was to miss the true potential of the experience.” He is explaining how if you don’t think about the deeper meaning in beauty you miss the potential of what you could see in something. One quote that really stood out to me was one that explains “the idea that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” You decide how you view something and it is up to you to have your own perspective. You can either view an object with an open mind or a closed mind. “If we want to understand beauty, we can’t just talk about things we find beautiful. We have to talk about our lives.” We must look for the deeper meaning behind things in life. I feel as though many people around me in life, and just society all together seem to have the mind set about something being beautiful from looks on the outside and tend to judge a book by its cover.
Great. I love how you incorporate more quotes into this free write. Make sure that you revisit the essay so that you have a strong understanding of how Armstrong works with this truism: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”