Everyone Looks Good From Far Away

"Everyone Looks Good From Far Away"

There's an interesting expression used by Alicia Silverstone in a silly but oddly profound movie from the ‘90’s called "Clueless". Alicia’s character “Cher“ often calls people "Monets", referencing the painter who uses impressionism with its blurred brushstrokes and muted pastels to make paintings that can't be figured out if you stand too close to them. So a “Monet” is someone who looks good from a distance, but up close, is a big mess. Well, this phenomenon happens all the time. You get too close to someone and it gets hard to see what attracted you to them to begin with because they no longer resemble the person you saw when you first met them.

But observing the details up close is what makes you really able to appreciate the fact that no one is perfect - you see the blemishes and the scars and the chipped teeth and the crooked toes and the wrinkles and grey roots. The details are where we learn the most about a person. Anyone can look good from a distance...it's all illusion...you can still superimpose your own ideals onto the person. But then, you are just stuck with your own perceptions, never able to learn something new or perhaps see the world through someone else's eyes.

It's a nasty business - knowing another person. It's even trickier letting yourself be known by others. But knowing another human being and being known is the highest form of intimacy. It satisfies that emptiness deep inside of us that yearns for ultimate fulfillment; to be loved for who we are, not what someone else wants us to be. It is the ultimate form of validation, of complete acceptance, and ultimately, of LOVE, for we cannot love what we do not know. We cannot know what we do not open ourselves to. It just doesn't work that way.

So walk up to the painting...stop admiring it from afar, look closely at the brushstrokes, the dust, the globs of unblended oils. It will only serve to shatter your illusions of perfection and exterminate the narcissism that keeps you "the expert" by only seeing things the way you want them to be. Passing by a work of art and gazing upon its beauty is enough for some. But brave is the person who can walk up to something that appears beautiful from a distance, see it up close, and let the stark reality of the object, in all of its fragility and flaws, still garner all the love it once knew before it was really known.