Beauty is subjective

I'm becoming fascinated with the concept of beauty.  Not in a makeup counter sort of way, but in the power of aesthetics to capture us.

I know architects who love Chicago. 

Naturalists who enjoy stark desert landscapes. 

Photographers who prefer landscapes in black and white. 

Each of us experiences "beauty" differently. 

Even in simple attraction.  I remember in high school seeing a guy turn the corner walking toward my friend and I.  To me, he was just a normal guy, but my friend sighed and said, "My god, he is gorgeous."

I'm curious if we don't have enough words for the concept. 

After all, fashion designers and makeup artists aren't selling beauty so much as they are selling sex, power and desire.  Note the names of the colors of my eye-shadow: "push up" "lace" and "velvet"—words that have everything to do with bras and nothing to do with color. The marketing campaigns sell the ability to attract others and a feeling of worthiness in being able to do so, but beauty...

that is something else.

Something the marketing has completely obscured.

I'm excited to spend a year noticing true beauty.  What is there beneath the hype.