4 reasons why the sky isn’t beautiful
This isn’t what it looks like
Picture it, your favorite version of it, the morning, night, or in-between sky. Imagine all of its nuances showing different facets of itself over minutes, hours, days, seasons, and years; silently manifesting that change have its way of being beautiful. I’d like to stablish that I always thought the sky was the most astonishing creation. However, as it happens with most things in life, there was more to consider then it meets the eye.
It turns out I was wrong. And I’ll tell you why. The real amazingness comes from the perspective I have from my little corner on Earth, Southeast of Brazil. It comes from what my eyes see when they turn to the mixture of atmosphere and Solar System that they are able to reach despite myopia. That’s what is astonishing.
Nothing is impressive on its own, you must choose to look, understand what you’re able to see and then allow yourself to be impressed. That’s why. From what I could find there are at least four reasons from which anyone could determine that their sky is indeed not beautiful:
1. The starting point
The starting point is from where you are looking. This, may I say, is one of the most important points we should consider while analyzing beauties. Take this as an example, picture it: a December morning, you look out the window and see how the world suddenly turned white while you were asleep, you take your coat from the back of your closet and visualize the kids a couple blocks away trying to build up a snow man.
Well, friend… for me this sounds like a nightmare or a public and natural manifestation that human race really messed up, considering I have never seen snow, especially in December, when it is summer here in Brazil. Your background has an immense influence on your perspective, it sets how normal is going to look like and what you should expect from beautiful. Therefore, your ‘outstanding’ will virtually never be the same of somebody else’s.
2. The Beholder
The beholder concept brings up a similar — though more individualized — consideration. I mentioned above that I am myopic. An interesting fact about myopia is that it can have among its causes a hereditary factor, which means that the difficulties you have to see with clarity can be due to genes you inherit from your parents. However, myopia can also be triggered by your day-to-day habits, like doing too much close-up work.
You can inherit your outbringing’s vision and the life you choose to live could aggravate or oppose you to it. Those are not always your choice, but they do have influence on you. If you don’t choose to put a glass on you could easily mistake a plane for a shooting star. We may not recognize the flaws in our eyes, our own tendencies and conditioning, and so we never really become able to see an inch ahead of us because we don’t consider ourselves in the need to put on glasses.
3. The Atmosphere
Orange skies are usually the result of a barrier made of pollution having NO2 as its main compound. The beauty is the result of a problematic background. We are all a bit shortsighted when we come face to face with the small infinities of the world. Besides, each atmosphere that surrounds us creates a barrier of particles that can become obstacles to the beauty that lies within. Our problems and the problems that cause those problems can blind us without realizing it. We can unintentionally focus on small impediments and make them stop us from seeing beyond them.
4. It isn’t real
Every single thing you think you see, no matter how genuine and tangible it may look, no longer exists. What you look at when turning your head up to the sky is the projection of what it once was thousands of light-years away. Still, we hang on to that current inexistent beauty and convince ourselves that when we compliment the skies, they deserve it.
What are your skies? Which things or people you believe you see clearly when all you regard as true is the product of your own imagination? Perhaps a memory, a distant vision that might have been once true but now only lives because you let yourself believe it is real.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but also in where is the beholder, in who are they, who they chose to be and where they chose to look at. The sky teaches me that we can choose to see beauty. We can look up, have different views, and still be fascinated by them. Because in the end of the day we are only astonished by the skies we choose to see.
Originally published at on July 16, 2022.
