demystifying beauty (sincerity)

Like every fashion blog I do enjoy putting together outfits, sharing quirky life moments, and (in my case) talking to my brother. Mostly, I don’t like to be too serious. People don’t generally take me too seriously anywhere- and I’m happy about this. But I do hope to have some point. In search of a purpose here, I’m starting a new series of articles (every Thursday): they’re curiously called ‘demystifying beauty’- and their purpose is just that: to decipher and explore what is really beautiful. Oh- and that name took me a good fifteen minutes to come up with- so please bear with me. You can clap too if you want (cue applause track). These pieces are not about fashion, they’re not about makeup, they’re not about what my brother thinks about the trivialities I usually focus on. I hope you like them. 

Today I want to write about sincerity.

The reason is simple: I can’t find it this week. Someone appears to have misplaced it. Not only have they misplaced it- I think they’ve accidentally locked it up somewhere, and then they lost the key. Or they gave the key to someone entirely untrustworthy, who proceeded to eat it (and won’t ‘fess up). Either way, you get the picture. Sincerity seems scarce.

First off, let’s decide what sincerity actually is.

I’m going to start by going down the really boring track of googling for a definition. I am appalled to discover the definition comes sans picture. Simply stated sincerity is genuineness, honesty and freedom from duplicity (which is annoying, because now I will need to google the definition of duplicity). But I don’t like defining a word by throwing in three new ones (particularly since I have no clue what one of them means). Let’s define sincerity as being what you believe and believing in what you be.

My brother (the one who’s featured here once a week- I only have one fortuitously)- has often accused me often of being a Sith Lord. For those of you not familiar, see here. Sith Lords deal in absolutes. They see the world as black or white, or since that’s a boring analogy, some other entirely opposing colors- like red and green. I see the world in red and green. This is a blessing and a curse (Sith Lord strikes again). Because you are either sincere (and by that I mean 100 per cent without exception) or you are insincere. There are no shades of pink (tee hee hee).

Sincerity is a beautiful thing because it is the meeting point of several other lofty ideals: like truth, honor, and simplicity (not an ideal exactly, but I’m a big fan of Leo Babauta). By default, nothing truthful is insincere; you can’t honor someone else or their work with insincerity, and sincerity makes every thing a little less complicated. But sincerity is, to quote someone I absolutely cannot bear to listen to (Ne-Yo), a beautiful monster (here); it is quite literally, all or nothing. 

Step back and question your own sincerity. Since I’m in no way at a liberty to discuss sincerity in anyone’s own life, I’m going to keep on track here…

Let’s look at sincerity in le-fashion-blogosphere: as a blogger how often do you engage with other bloggers in a spirit of sincerity? How many of us follow other bloggers in the hopes that they’ll follow us back? How many of us advertise our competitions and giveaways and nominations through the use of someone else’s blog space? Are these sincere practices? (The right answer is no. Enter Sith: There is no other possible answer). The next time you visit a blog make sure that when you do, and when you choose to interact with the creative people who lie behind it, you do so out of complete sincerity. To sincerely appreciate their work without expecting them to reciprocate, you are honoring their hours and their creativity, you are being truthful (unless you actually hate that dress), and it’s also a lot simpler than copying your link into the little white box.

In fact, taking sincerity in le-fashion-blogosphere one step further, you might even want to become a blogging monk and turn off your own ability to receive comments and feedback. But everyone loves feedback right? And there is in essence, nothing wrong with that. You can be a means of growing sincere joy in this little way. The more blogs you visit, the more joy you spread. The less that visit you back, the more joy you have spread with sincerity. 

And that of course, is a beautiful thing.

Blogging monk- I kind of like the sound of that.