Is Beauty Real, or Just Written in Our Genes?

We often speak about beauty as if it were an absolute truth. We say something is beautiful the way we might say something is tall or is heavy. But the more one thinks about it, the more fragile that certainty becomes.

Perhaps what we call beauty is not an objective quality at all. It may simply be a signal our biology has taught us to recognize.

Across human history, attraction has served a purpose. Certain facial symmetries, body proportions, skin textures, or expressions may have signaled health, fertility, or genetic strength to our ancestors. Over thousands of generations, our brains learned to notice these signals quickly. What we experience as attraction may simply be an ancient biological algorithm quietly running in the background of our minds.

This would explain why beauty changes so dramatically across cultures and time. What one era considers the ideal form, another era may ignore. In some societies fuller bodies were admired; in others, slenderness became fashionable. Skin tones, facial structures, hairstyles, and even expressions move in and out of favor like seasons. If beauty were absolute, it would not change so easily.

Yet attraction itself remains constant.

This suggests that beauty may not exist as a fixed property of a person or object. Instead, it may exist in the interaction between our biological wiring and what we are looking at. In other words, beauty might not be in the world — it might be in the code of our genes.

And still, there is something poetic about this idea. What we feel as a mysterious pull, a quiet admiration, or an unexplainable attraction may simply be life recognizing patterns that helped it survive.

Beauty, then, may not be an absolute truth.

It may be evolution whispering through our senses.

Comments

My First Job at Hindustan Zinc Limited: The Day I Fought a Battle That Wasn’t in the Job Description

Hindustan Zinc Limited, 2004 There are first jobs — and then there was HZL. Hindustan Zinc Limited was a giant in mining and metals: structured, hierarchical, and system-driven. And there I was — a freshly minted IIT graduate, quietly waiting for my University of Waterloo call letter, treating HZL as nothing more than a temporary stopgap. It didn’t take long to sense the mismatch. Instinctively, I knew this wasn’t an environment where I would stay long. But life, as it often does, had other plans. The Unexpected Reunion On the very first day of induction, I noticed a familiar name on the HR list: Surbhi Shrivastava. The same Surbhi from my school days — admired, visible, graceful, socially confident. Back then, we had never really spoken. I was the quiet topper, known more through exaggerated stories told by teachers and backbenchers than through actual presence. So when I introduced myself that day, her response was simple: Professional courtesy. Polite indifference. No recognition. ...

The Year Friends Changed My Life

There was a time at Don Bosco's, Patna when I was completely bored with my classmates. They were decent people, but not adventurous enough for the restless energy I carried inside. Somewhere deep within, I felt there had to be more interesting people in the world — people who questioned things, laughed loudly, and carried a little rebellion in their spirit. By Class 7, I had almost given up on school and, in some strange way, on life itself. To make matters worse, I fractured my hand that year. What should have been a temporary inconvenience became a convenient excuse. I stopped going to school regularly, hiding behind the bandage and my boredom. Still, one thing about me was constant — somehow I would pass my exams even if the world was about to end. So Class 7 passed by quietly. Then came Class 8, and something unusual happened. That year the school failed almost 20% of the students in each class. At the time it felt harsh, but looking back, it felt as if the universe had qui...

Under the Tree: The Story of Munna and a Friendship That Refuses to Fade

Some friendships begin in classrooms, some in playgrounds, and some over shared interests. Ours began under a tree. My first school had no building, no corridors, and no polished floors. It was simply a primary school under a large tree , meant for children from poor families like mine. In those days I was growing up in what felt like the poorest corner of the poorest state of a poor country. Life was simple, and resources were scarce. School, for me, was not exciting. I disliked the discipline — the idea of sitting in one place, listening, repeating lessons. Even a school under a tree felt restrictive to a restless child. I would have happily wandered in fields or played by the river instead. But that was where I met Munna . Munna was one year older than me. In that early chaos of childhood, he became the first person outside my family who mattered deeply. At that age we didn’t know words like friendship , loyalty , or bond . But somehow we already understood them. Soon Mun...

horizontaly parked in diagonal world

Search This Blog