Sunday, November 21, 2010

Does the cover matter?

Every single person who has had the fortune of going to a decent school must have been taught (in different language and context of course) that one should never judge a book by its cover. Fact that the exterior doesn’t always represent the interior is the basic premise behind the adage.

Apart from few people who actually read books because they have pretty covers, this saying doesn’t involve books at all. More so importantly it is about people. The cover here symbolises the exterior, the looks of a person and the content of the book, a metaphor for the personality of the person. How much are we influenced by how a person’s looks while making a judgement on them? For pretentious snobs who claim they don’t judge other people, I would say this article is not meant for sublime humanoids who are beyond the humane follies. For others the question persists, how much importance the cover hold when we no longer talk about books?
Living in a world, bombarded by pictures of false perfection, do we put too much judgement on some factors which a person rarely has control? This thought has been generated by a rather unfortunate incident in which I chickened out of a situation just because the other person involved was not that much of a looker (actually it is much more sinister but hardly writable). The fact that I never gave the contents any chance doesn’t make me a very good person. Can it be that when it comes to the matters of the heart, looks are the most important thing and personality something second in line? Is it a person’s fault he/she does not look very good? Yes a person does have some control over the appearance but save plastic surgery I don’t see any drastic steps that can make anyone look significantly better than what they are.
What is making it worse is the control against which we are judged are greatly increasing to unattainable levels. Extremely thin models, exceptionally well built male models are being flashed to our unknowing eyes. Oblivious to the fact that these people have nothing else to do whole day other than work towards looking good, plus airbrushing, makeup and camera tricks are also involved. Sometimes the people shown are just plain unhealthy and they shouldn’t be a model of anything leave alone beauty.
The most one can do to combat this extreme judgement is to start judging others in the same way you would want someone to judge you. You cannot expect you to be treated fairly if you go about calling people fat for having few extra pounds because when you put on those extra pounds you call yourself fat. For me it’s easier said than done as this simple method accidently overlaps many important psychological areas of importance like self esteem, self acceptance and third party validation. For those who can manage, the world will always be a more accepting and less judging place. For the rest it will always be a struggle to reach that unattainable book cover. Oblivious to the fact that someone out there might be interested in opening the book beyond the cover page and reading the contents, we will keep trying to photo shop the bloody heck out of the book cover.
Hopefully a time will come that will free us from the binds of judgement in future but till that time we will always try to loose that fat we put on when we were enjoying our life, a few moments which didn’t care for the judging eyes, few moments represented by a nice chocolate cake which like the cake finish up leaving behind a dirty plate of conscience and two hours on the treadmill.

Readers of course realise that every “we” here is me.

10 comments:

Roma said...

Just wanted to pop by and say how lovely your blog is. Your writing is captivating and poignant and it was only today i was thinking about 'the book by its cover' concepts. Really brilliant blog! Up early this morning?!

p.s. I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing and was just wondering if you had a spare moment, could you take a quick peek at my blog? Love it or hate it, any comment from a pro blogger like you would be really wonderful! thanks!

Anonymous said...

style, or the energy to exert yourself, matters more than physical characteristics. the people who are too lazy to do this eventually lose their natural looks all too soon anyway

Inspector Clouseau said...

Interesting blog.

Nice work. I came across your blog while “blog surfing” using the Next Blog button on the blue Nav Bar located at the top of my blogger.com site. I frequently just travel around looking for other blogs which exist on the Internet, and the various, creative ways in which people express themselves. Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

I'd like the topic and I find it interesting.
You are great indeed.

Nice post.


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Dave Szakacs said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Szakacs said...

This post was very honest. I really enjoyed reading it. It's sad how the "standard" has changed into being "hot". tanning, being so thin, and having the right brand of clothes. Cotton t-shirts with designs have started to be the final ruling on how cool of a person someone is.

blueditty said...

Sometimes one must judge a book by it's cover. That cover will tell an insightful person an awful lot about the contents.

secretive_whisper said...

i also found your blog while blog surfing.. its great
how true, we so so often we struggle endlessly to reach that unattainable book cover.
im a new blogger, just wondered if you could have a look through my new blog, give me some tips?
you are great :D

Eric Degen said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Siddhi said...

Wonderfully written! :)
It's sad that people STILL judge a book by its cover. It just would be their loss, if nothing more.