BEAUTY IS RANDOM

In the words of Rehman Bashir on a dark background littered with these three texts, I found the reason behind my smile as I walked through the markets of Port Harcourt and Lagos. Isn’t it interesting! Fascinating how beauty lurks in the tiniest things around us and yet we don’t see them. 

If familiarity was a person, it would be a thief; a high-end gangster that ambushes individuals from bushes and gives a brute and terrible assassination.  

Let me explain this in little clips of time that I have gathered through my short-lived experience:

When was the last time you heard a child laugh? It doesn’t matter if they are stuck by the waterside for accommodation or they live in a glass house, one thing is constant purity. That purity- beautiful.

The spark of colors in flower petals, clusters of little shrubs with the hibiscus somewhere between. Don’t you ever wonder how they are orchestrated? 

The buzz of road through the streets of Port Harcourt and Lagos; the electric buzz, rhythm, the color flow down at the garage from cars, the movement of people through the crossroad, the blue and red BRT as they drive through in haste.

The stream of water as I waft through Lagos Island, the color of streetlights as they poured on the water, when silent is prominent. Peace!

It isn’t beautiful to you because it is familiar to you. 

Wonder how sometimes there is a certain character or stuff that your attention is drawn to in a movie, they stand out. There is a focus on these seemingly ‘ordinary stuff’ in a movie that you would ignore at any time but right there on that screen,  they become new to you. Maybe it could be the pop of color to them, or something else, but suddenly you have an insight, you realize those ‘seemingly unimportant things’ have a story to tell, a story that stands alone. Video makers use of the technique, but people don’t.  

There is beauty within people, and it isn't confined to places or art alone. There is beauty everywhere only when you choose to see it. Media has stripped us of the ability to see, sideline us to the standards they describe as beauty that we only see what they describe as beauty. Yet, this is a lie. Beauty doesn’t have to be sidelined to architectural wonder, 2022 Benz, interior décor, etc. The media have shown us that these things are beautiful. True. But they are not the only beautiful things. 

Beauty is random. Beauty is present right where you are. 

Look at you! Look at how far you have grown, isn’t that beautiful to you? Is not? Then tell your story to someone that is currently going through what you have gone through before. 

Beauty is sold in a thrift store. 

It is simply given. Everything man learned the art of beauty from was stolen from nature. Guess what-nature isn’t expensive! This goes to show, beauty doesn’t have to be too much, but seen. You only appreciate a city when you look down at it, you only appreciate air when you don’t have it. Unless you decide to see outside the box, you might never see what you have right there with you. 

Beauty is random. Beauty is present right where you are!