We live in an ugly world. Oh, you can sing me the praises of this place or that, this person or that, but we know that those are increasingly minorities, and that much we see as beauty is easily scratched through.

We seek beauty, the beauty that appeals to us.

We are told as children that the world is a fair place, that we should share, that we should be kind, and that we should think of others – but somehow, in such a world where all of that is taught to children all over as rote – somehow, that isn’t the world we live in. We live in a world of quiet isolation, whether surrounded by people or not, our inner values a stark contrast to the world around us.

Some of us become ugly. Some of us meet parts of ourselves that are ugly. Is it ugly? Is it that we were taught that it was ugly? Why do we think it is ugly? Sometimes it simply is what it is; the person who revels in nature loses their mind when they step in shit. Irony. Ugly.

So we grow up, and come of age fighting with our inner values and the values that the world shows us. We all find some beauty somewhere to treasure, but around us all is ugly.

Even marketing makes ugly common enough where we think it is beauty when it isn’t. It finds what we can’t look away from and mistakes it for beauty, then to keep our eyes for selling ugly things, or things to become ugly, it makes us think everyone thinks it is.

Maybe we should be teaching children not that the world is a place of magic and beauty, but instead that it is a scary and ugly place filled with people who do not care about us – and that way, the magic of true beauty will be that much more appealing.