☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: Don't Mistake Glamour For Beauty

You are worth more.

1. Morning Contemplation

🎧 You can find the audio version of this morning’s contemplation below.

Good morning.

The late art critic Robert C. Morgan once made an interesting point about the difference between beauty and glamour:

Beauty is not glamour. Most of what the media.. the fashion world.. Hollywood.. the art world has to offer is glamour. Glamour, like the art world itself, is a highly fickle and commercially driven enterprise that contributes to.. the “humdrum”. It appears and disappears.. No one ever catches up to glamour.

It’s an evident sign of our times. Our perceptions are constantly being trained one way or another to be wowed by the short-lived, the immediate impact. Glamour tends only to have a first effect. It’s a single flicker. Beauty, on the other hand, glows. It can be recognized by its endurance.

Following this line of thinking, mere appearance isn’t beauty. Looks change, even fade. The Stoic teacher Epictetus told his students this:

You aren’t flesh or hair. You are will. You’re beautiful only if your will is in a beautiful condition.

In other words, a person can only be beautiful if they are beautiful as a human being. Beauty lies in the choices we make and the actions we take. Only character endures.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t take pride in our appearance and tend to our personal hygiene, of course. But just as we keep our bodies clean, we should also be aware of the maintenance required to cleanse our characters.

This involves getting rid of bad judgments, dealing with our irrational fears, exerting self-control, helping others, and all the other work that comes with the practice of philosophy.

As Robert C. Morgan put it, no one ever catches up to glamour. It’s here and then it’s gone. It can’t be relied upon as the basis for a good life. Beauty, however, the beauty of a beautiful will? That’s much more dependable.

2. Morning Meditation

Sit down in a safe, comfortable spot, close your eyes, and take a few minutes to meditate on this morning's theme.