-Alessia Cara Scars to your beautiful
In Laozi’s Dao De Jing poem number 2 things are explained as with one thing being recognized it brings another to life. For example the poem states “Recognize beauty and ugliness is born/ Recognize good and evil is born.” So you recognize something and the opposite is brought to life. You can not have one thing without the other; you can not have good without the bad. In this song Alessia Cara sings that beauty is pain and there’s beauty in everything. In that she's stating that there is something good and beautiful in everything, but there is also bad and painful.
It seems to me the song lyrics here also reflect the other lesson of the opening poems of the Dao De Jing--when we allow conventional standards for beauty, goodness, and social status control and limit our perspective, we cause serious harm to ourselves and others. The person in the song wants to be "an envy"--that is, she wants to be glorified by others (poem 3). She thinks about "cover girls" and idolizes the impossible ideal of feminine beauty that they represent. And as a result, she starves herself and "fades away".
ReplyDeleteAs Cara says, though, this would not be necessary if she could accept her own unique beauty and self-worth. She's killing herself and "fading away" as an individual because she doesn't embrace and love herself for who she is.
According to Laozi, we need to prioritize what makes us truly healthy and balanced--"weakening ambitions and strengthening bones" (poem 3).