September 29, 2003.

Heroic beauty - An ode to the human being

There is so much degrading porn and lifeless, thoughtless nudity on the web these days, that it fills us with a rare excitement and sense of righteousness to bring you photos like the ones we have in today's gallery of Kira by Alеxаndеr Fеdоrоv.

These photos exude something that has been so relentlessly beaten out of us that we can scarcely remember what the word for it sounds like. Modern political philosophies and fundamentalist religions have bled the meaning out of those few failing memories of it we do have, usually from our innocent childhood. It is something more profound than joy, rarer than happiness, and more vital to our survival than any other single feeling we can ever have.

I'm talking about pride.

We have been taught that pride is a sign of foolishness, that it goes before a fall, and that it is the worst sin a person can commit. But are we to be ashamed then of all our great and glorious accomplishments, both as individuals and a species? And if so, why?

This is a question no one has ever given a rational answer to, because, in truth, there is no rational answer to it. This is why someone eons ago had to invent the idea of original sin. They had to go back to a fictitious time when someone (a woman) apparently did something so bad that we all are supposed to feel guilty for it today.

If anything, this necessity to look outside the bounds of reality and time to find a reason why pride is bad is the best proof we can ever have that pride is actually good.

And not just good, but great. Only the person who goes against overwhelming opposition ever creates anything of any value. Rising above the opposition of the masses is what makes an individual man or woman who accomplishes something, greater than those masses.

This is one of the reasons we admire nude models so much around here, and today's gallery especially. The photos depict Kira at peace with herself and the world, she is nude, deep in a rough-hewn, wild, primordial forest. And the emotion she feels, naked in the magnificence of this world, is pride.

We at Body in Mind reject with no uncertain prejudice the idea that human beings must feel guilty and low inspite of whatever good we do, whatever solutions we invent, whatever beauty we create and whatever happiness we achieve. It is mankind, by way of great individuals, which has risen to a point where such a lovely sight can exist, where a single female can be master of the world around her, and can feel her loftiness, and can enjoy it, in the form of pride.

It is a heroic beauty, inspiring a profound sense of awe for the human being, on a scale as grand as nature itself. Looking with admiration at Kira, and then at the world around her, we realize that nowhere in the great design of the world, except in a woman such as she, is there colour more saturated with life, shapes more subtle, lines more intricate, texture more soft and luxurious. As interesting as nature is, as infinite in design and rich in variety, it cannot compete with the beauty of the nude human female.

Herein lies the potential heroism in great female beauty. It makes us proud to be human. It makes us realize that there is nothing more magnificent in all of creation, nothing more complex, more evolved, or more sophisticated than we are. And when Kira holds her head high and looks off into the sky we see that the highest vantage point and the point of farthest vision in the entire universe, is the human eye.

© 2003 by Dwаynе Bеll

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