In the Eye of the Beholder

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what about ugliness?

How do we define ugly? What repulses us? And why?

I posed these questions at Visionary Fiction Alliance in a review of Dean Koontz's latest release, Innocence, in which little by little, step by step, Koontz immerses us in ugly, until we are in ugly's head.

Ugly on my mind.

During my 3-mile walk today, ugly was on my mind.

I saw many sights that could easily be overlooked as too ordinary to deserve attention or dismissed as eyesores that should be destroyed, if not for lack of time and money.

But then I leaned in for a closer look.

I noticed the interplay of light and shadow, the tenacity of the weeds, and the way nature intertwined with the man-made.

 

Ugly or beautiful?

And then it hit me, as it did in my review of Innocence.

Ugliness depends upon the eye of the beholder. Sometimes we don't go deep enough to find the beauty in something ugly or the ugly in something beautiful.

Sometimes we are wrong.

Take a look at the objects around you, especially when you're in the midst of nature. Then lean in as if using the zoom feature of your camera.

You may be surprised at how something that at first glance appears ugly becomes beautiful upon closer examination.

As always, thanks for stopping by.