Comment on: Irresistibly Fish

Post: Your ugly baby is the most beautiful thing i have ever seen…

Question: what do you think? is it a cardinal sin to call someone’s baby ‘ugly’? what should my response be if you ask me about your new hairstyle and it kinda looks to me like a Johnny Depp/Tim Burton collaboration?

Engaging question.
You got me at hello.                                                                                                                               An answer:
There is this focus point game I enjoy. It seems relevant to your question. It’s a lot of fun, too.

This game is to look seeking to find the beauty.

You win when you find the hidden deliciousness.

That is the game.

We all play this game in a way. While watching movies, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the Kardashians, reading for pleasure. It’s fun. It’s also the noob level of the game. Who can’t do that one? Even a Neanderthal could figure that out.

To seek beauty, to notice it, to enjoy it, is a basic human drive for pleasure. To see beauty and notice it under difficult or impossible circumstances, this is extreme-play.

The high level players seek a challenge, and get the rewards of the heightened experiences.

If you think the sweetness of hot is delicious, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
I work out my beauty hunting gamer often, too, so she doesn’t get fat faced.
Any way in my opinion anything you connect with, and give your heart to somehow becomes beautiful-alchemy.
Experiencing beauty is among the sweetest wonders of being human. Challenging yourself to find it in the extreme void-of-beauty thing, is reckless abandon hedonism.

Remember falling in love?

Go to that moment. Then imagine, feeling that intensity, minus the eroticism, over something that usually does not inspire that feeling. It can. try an unrelated old person, or when you see a stranger’s baby, a down and out friend, an ugly stranger, a thing; anything, crappy attitudes work too.

Some feel this worship toward a God. This is an easy one.
Obviously babies are a challenge for you, so if you were to even think of seeking to see beauty, and feel great joy in random people and things, you might not want to start there. If you love a God. That is an easy place to start.

Or start with something you like. A shiny hot rod. A game feat. A woman. A man. First choose a perfect something.  Choose anything that totally thrills you. If it’s a man or woman, try to see beyond erotic. Erotic-no brainer. That’s for noobs.

Take some time.  Really feel the how the feeling makes you feel. Feel the wonder delight it inspires in you. Diving into those emotions is the way. Swimming in them, even.

Take it a step further.

Imagine it, he, she, old, and crapped out, that it betrayed you, fat, your worst nightmare. Imagine still feeling the same. Your worship does not change.

If you can still feel the same about it. You are off to a good start.

I started with things, I already liked. Just felt all my juicy feelings for it. That feeling felt so good that gratitude crept in. I feel gratitude for the thing. For it just existing, for making me so happy. This drug cocktail really works for me.

Then, after dong that for a while something happened. It changed everything.

One random day, I got on a bus.

I am hunting. I’m a predator praying on need. A need of a little boost, or a smile, a look of tenderness, some recognition. So I get to be of service. They are my customer. I get well paid. Being of service, don’t get my wrong, is all about my own pleasure. It’s free joy. No need to smoke anything to feel this good. It’s very selfish of me, really. So looking for a mother with a fussy kid to entertain for the ride, or someone to smile toward, I’m just looking for a fix.
I get on the bus, pay the driver, then scope out the… Boom! A shock wave of wtf.  The most ugly person I have ever, I mean ever, seen, like a cave man in trousers. He is sitting on this bus looking straight ahead, three rows down.

Ugly takes my breath away.

I would take at least a page to describe, that he wasn’t deformed, just the most grotesque form of every feature, so I’m skipping it.
The shocked mute feeling that anyone could be this ugly. Every feature was off, like out of Hollywood makeup proportion. I must avert my eyes like I’m figuring everyone else on here is doing. The horror on my face embarrasses me.
I’m young, naïve, ignorant, but I’d just read in one of my college books about how being noticed is a basic need. And this guy, I’m betting never gets noticed. Babies always get noticed. I’d started taking the bus, and being noticed allot, too, recently. As with “likes”, and comments, I’d been enjoying it so much. It felt great. It feels really good!

I’m young and pretty, alone on a bus. No challenge there.

But this guy. No sugar for him, perhaps ever.
The bus was half full.
The guy was going to look up any second. I needed to hold his gaze for an instant, to offer him something. I’m going to do this.

I’m pleading with myself. See something that could reflect back on your face that isn’t disgusted or fake. I can not fake this one.

Couldn’t see an alternative either.

Struggling. Impossible. I can’t do it.

Being proud stubborn and driven, that option doesn’t work for me. That, and Libra must- have-fair kicked in.

So, chicken, and partial then?

Oh, so you’re not reaching out to the one person on this bus who is actually in need?

You know how inner dialogue makes no sense. Suddenly, it wasn’t a game of hunting self-satisfaction, anymore. I’m challenged. It feels like to-the-death.

Reaching for something to hold onto that wouldn’t be more awkward. My mind is racing. What expression goes on my face? How do I get it there? How can I be of service to this guy who obviously could use a straight look, and yet, not be hypocrite?

This is no cute, bored baby, give a mother a moment of rest intervention.
The question popped in my mind. He has a mother. She has looked at him his whole life. What does his mother see?
Not even a mother, seriously, could like to look at this guy.

That’s what.
That didn’t work. The guy is looking at me.
Emergency!
What does his mother feel?
Oh.

That was it. Right there, the right question.

His mother shimmers in me. I don’t know how, I feel her. Wow!
I know what his mother feels.  She feels terrific! Her heart warmer than any heart I’d ever felt.

That’s my sudden calm implosion of rapture.
I’d been debating about were to sit, while all this is going down. Didn’t want sit as far away from him as possible. Yep, that is the seating pattern. A bus full of people looking fidgety straight ahead into the distance. To sit close to him I might seem calculated to not avoid him. Calculated sucks. Much less to sit next to him for charity. Charity sucks.
There are lots of empty seats. Every one in his vicinity is empty.

The back of the bus, is packed.
Eagerly, of a sudden I find myself involuntarily sidling up to the empty aisle seat and popping right in next to him. My face turns in his direction. You-are-the-second-coming-smile, fires up of its own. Looking him in the face, my mind catches up. I’m in unique and comfortable company. The real, the engaging connected person. He doesn’t smile. He is a smile.

I lose track of time.

We talked. No, he talked. I listened. He told me some things I felt in my body were true or meaningful, stirring, but I didn’t understand what the hell he was saying in plain words. Only little by little, all much, later something happens and I remember that day.

Oh, that. Cool. Some of it scared me when I thought of it later. Not in the moment though. Spellbound, I didn’t see my stop.
Your stop. He gestured with his enormous crooked chin.
What? I look up. Oh, yeah.
It was nice! Bye.
His words unraveled into long golden strings in my life way later.

From this inexplicable experience, I realize I want to exercise a seeing the truth of people muscle. Back then, I didn’t have words for it.
Well, all this is unexpected…
Guess, I’ll post this on my blog today. It’s so long….
Wow, you really have a gift.
Also, your rambling stream of consciousness reminds me of me. It’s like home. Of course I like home best. It’s nice being reminded.
Ha ha. Done writing for the day, two birds with one stone.

From Waywardspirit commenting on Irresistibly Fish