Beyond The Appearance There Is A Wonderful Treasure: The Essence
I like people who do not judge a book by its cover, I like curious people who, with passion and delicate patience, scroll through the pages of their life novel to discover its history, its essence, its magic. Because the most beautiful treasures go beyond a beautiful face, a certain way of dressing or a shy attitude that sometimes hides a surprising personality.
We know that saying these things is easy, almost like a promotional slogan on the first page of a self-help book. However, if there is something we all know is that prejudices and stereotypes are for many an absolute truth, so what is beautiful is also good, what has charm is noble and youth is seen as a value to be preserved. All this makes us live in a society that is, in reality, hypocritical.
It is not easy to see at first sight the true essence of a person. To succeed, not only does it take time, but we must also sweep away all those clichés that we have assimilated and internalized as our own because society accepts them as universally valid values.
First of all, you need a great willpower, the prevailing desire to want to go beyond appearances and clichés that do not contemplate exceptions. Because many times we find ourselves in contexts where everyone tries to show themselves in a different way, to sell qualities they don’t have or to hide real beauties under kilos of make-up and eating disorders.
They are unhealthy and unhappy behaviors. It is necessary to explore the essence of others and our own, to find the perfect balance between what we are and what we show, between what we feel inside and what we externalize.
Angels are in the essence
The devil is said to be in the details and the angels in the essence. It is as if the important things escape our gaze or our attention, always too busy, hyper-stimulated and distracted. Now, as curious as it may seem, this is precisely where the origin of the problem lies, the reason why almost 90% of us judge a person instantly based on mere appearance: we need a quick assessment to know how to react..
Our brain is a great saver. The computer metaphor is now obsolete, but this near-perfect organ works just the same way: it processes data, comes to a conclusion and generates an answer.
Faced with an appearance that is not common for us, perhaps because we do not know the person in front of us well, is a foreigner, belongs to another culture, etc., it is likely that our brain will label it as “not to be trusted” and that it invites us to walk away with discretion. Because for many “different” means “dangerous”.
However, our brains have traveled a certain distance before coming to this kind of response and reaction. Our upbringing, our previous experiences, and our personality are some of the factors that shaped this filter of judgment. They are the main culprits that lead us to fall into clichés or who, on the contrary, make us put aside stereotypes and show us more open, more interested in who we are in front of.
The true angels, therefore, are found in the essence of people and it is this essence that we must reach, expanding our filters, removing power from the stereotypes that society inculcates in us and those arbitrary labels that only closed, inflexible minds apply in the life of everyday.
The need to respect one’s own essence as well
So far we have talked about the need to go beyond what our senses capture, to sink into the true essence of an individual: the whole universe that exists beyond skin, clothes, a beautiful face. It will be difficult to make this journey if we don’t first deepen our essence. One thing that will allow us to show ourselves to others in a genuine way, without distortions, without falsehood and without the need to resort to the mask of appearance.
It is not easy to do this because those “false selves” are actually defensive barriers. We need them to disguise insecurity, fears and even possible trauma. Furthermore, we cannot neglect the gender roles that society pushes us to assume in order to follow already planned paths.
Women must be beautiful and keep themselves eternally young. Men, on the other hand, must show themselves strong and confident. It is very difficult, therefore, to be ourselves in a world that tells us in advance “how we should be”.
Carl Gustav Jung in his day said that nothing is as difficult as achieving that individuality with which to live according to one’s essence. This journey towards the realization of one’s uniqueness, the Swiss psychiatrist said, requires several battles in different castles against different dragons. Those that, in the course of history, have been built by the complex and at times selfish collectivity.
We therefore learn to see our inner essence in order to live in harmony with it and at the same time respect that of others. It is worthwhile to undertake this journey and, without a doubt, also to wait for the result.
