Brain, Beauty, and Breast Implants

We admire successful people. Many of them are naturally talented in many ways. We applaud their achievements.

We like beautiful people. Many achieve richness and fame through marriage. We are often not so kind to their ascendance in the material world.

One argues that truly successful people can’t rely on their talent alone, they work hard. The light bulb guy has a formula: 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. I believe, however, the talent dosage should be much higher. Although “anyone can cook”, according to Gusteau, very few in reality can become a great chef. God is biased and unfair. Through hard labor, Salieri transformed himself from a farm boy to the Austrian court composer, yet he could never achieve the level of genius “a performing monkey” did, the boorish and vulgar Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Perspiration is certainly required. No lazy man can achieve greatness, but a great man must be a genius. My prescription for success is “diligence, persistence, talent, and a bit of luck”. Forest Gump is just a fairytale.

If we look hard into the life of Miss Teen South Carolina, we may find she takes care of her appearance diligently and persistently every day. She may not think about US maps all the time, but surely spends every single waking minute of her life to make sure she looks fabulous. That’s hard work, people! She needs to keep up with all the latest and greatest thingies in science, culture, and medicine (for cosmetics, fashion, and plastic surgery). The level of commitment is as tremendous as a successful MIT applicant would have. Besides, not any beauty can hit a jackpot. One may need some sly planning from coach Hitch, some arm wrestling with rivals, and in many cases, a prestigious background to be accepted into the elite society. Simply prostituting yourself wouldn’t get you very far. Cleopatra is just as great as, if not greater than, Gaius Julius.

(To be fair, she was pretty smart too, the first one in her 300-year Ptolemaic linage to speak Egyptian).

So it’s a corollary that if we are impressed by someone who starts to read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to enlarge his brain surface area, we should also admire someone who tries to stuff her Hans and Franz to increase her cup size.

But it seems some people just have problems with breast implants. When someone with prescription glasses opts for laser surgery, no one is ripping him a new one. The benefit thereof over ugly glasses is mostly cosmetic. You may argue for convenience, but it’s still an artificial enhancement. Hair transplant is another publicly favorable procedure that defines “cosmetic” in cosmetic surgery. The easiest and the most common among all is probably piercing, and ear piercing is so commonplace most people do not even consider it as surgery. Come to think of it, ear piercing is probably one of the most artificial, superficial, and brutal procedures. It’s artificial because it allows attachment of visible foreign objects while other nicking and tucking at least try to restore or enhance the natural beauty in human body; Ear piercing is superficial because it is really done on the surface (*); and the reason for its brutality is that it’s fundamentally a purposeful mutilation of the human body. Therefore, I think anyone who feels strongly against “distastefully superficial” cosmetic surgery like breast implants should feel the same about ear piercing.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with piercing at all. If you have a Prince Albert, more power to you!

Simply the point here is the pursuit of beauty has two objects: the much applauded inner one and the often coveted outer one. While we encourage someone to improve his intelligence, develop his character and perfect his personality, we should also cheer for his effort to attain physical perfection through natural or surgical means. Furthermore, we should embrace it with the same passion and excitement as the Romans in discovering something wonderful in Greek antiquity.


(*): it’s purely semantic, but I can’t resist.