Thursday 5 May 2011

Burgundy People

Extraordinary people are burgundy.

Picture the face of someone considered attractive. What is appealing about their face? Is it the proportions of their features? The closeness of their eyes? The width of their smile? The shape of their nose? It could be any or all of these factors. (If you aren't picturing a face you personally find attractive – attractive in all aspects, not just the colour of their eyes – now would be the time to.) Would you say that many other people find this face attractive, or just you? Do you think a face exists that no one could despise?

So what is it about certain distances between one's facial features that appeal to humans? My conclusion: we have a predisposition to be attracted to attributes that are less likely to be problematic or are 'even' or symmetrical. (Okay, this isn't my conclusion, it's basically Darwin's natural selection theory.)

Ok, so you've pictured an attractive face and wondered why it's attractive to you. So what? Well, answer this: would this face stand out in a crowd? Or is it just a nice common face? My guess is most would answer that this face would stand out to them. The common person on the street doesn't have that special a face or you wouldn't think of it as especially attractive.

This is an analogy to people's brains/personalities. Ever notice that geniuses often go insane? Someone with an extremely high IQ may suffer from mental problems. This doesn't mean that every smart person is crazy. It means that there's a fine line between genius and insane.

Picture the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum of light. Red is on the opposite side of purple. Yet, any artist can tell you that the colour burgundy is between purple and red. How can this be if red and purple are separated by every other visible colour? The colour wheel says it's possible to mix purple and red, while the spectrum of light says it's not.

Picture your attractive face again. If one feature were changed in the slightest it would most likely lose its attractiveness.

The bottom line: Beautiful people are close to ugly people, geniuses are close to psychos, red is close to purple. The most extraordinary people you will meet consist of two extreme opposites. They are a paradox. They are Burgundy People.

3 comments:

  1. Liberal is close to Conservative. Yet Conservative is more ugly. Hmmm.. and the Internet is the great equalizer.. cause you don't have to look at people. Well you can look at their avatar if they have one. Hmm.. Avatar blue. Darth Vadar black. Black bad.. So much to analyze about colours. Jane Siberry -"symmetry is the way things have to be...".. of coures the beauty of that song, is it's not symmetrical.. I think... but I only listened to one side.. hey.. look at life from both sides now.. but.. I digress

    ReplyDelete
  2. Restated: Symmetry -that song is beautiful because it's not.
    1 paradox

    ReplyDelete
  3. There's so many more paradoxes to analyze. And colours are symbols of them. And I agree with Jane Siberry – only I think she means asymmetrical symmetry. Balanced but not equal.

    ReplyDelete