what she means: have you noticed that whenever people tell cheesy stories about going off the grid to find themselves, it always includes elements of feeling freedom from their appearance for the first time? not that they felt pretty or beautiful for the first time, but that for the first time, they didn’t care at all? when I lived on a farm, I didn’t care about how I looked. I washed my face and combed my hair, and nothing else mattered. nobody else cared either. we got along with each other, or we didn’t, but we worked together to get our work done, and we ate well, and we explored the world, and we were mostly happy.
similarly, people joke that hiking or camping or roadtrips “lowers the bar” of what we consider attractive. that after two months on the appalachian trail, suddenly you find people attractive even with messy hair, and no makeup, and when they smell a little funky. and you feel good about yourself even though you have messy hair, and no makeup, and you smell kind of funky.
we like to laugh at this phenomenon as if we’re all just a bunch of hippies forgetting what it’s like to be and look “normal” for a while, but I think what’s actually going on is very said because the truth is
we’re just realizing that when we escape media for a few months, a few weeks, a few days, when we’re not comparing ourselves to impossible images, when we’re not told we have to have this body, this face-shape, this color skin, no acne, no scars, straight teeth, shaved armpits, a “good” smile, the “right” clothes, the “correct” gender presentation,
suddenly, we feel good about ourselves. The truth is, we’re experiencing freedom from the pressures of what society deems “acceptable,” “pretty,” “attractive,” for the first time, and we can then realize how fucked up our modern idea of beauty has become.
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