Do You Choose Your Patients? Or Do They Choose You?

While related, they are two distinct entities. To be successful takes equal commitment from both the doctor and the patient,

- Dr Steven Dayan

Beauty is not only the universal language connecting human beings across all cultures, but also the universal language connecting all living species. It is the vehicle that allows a banana to message a primate it is ripe, as well as a daffodil to solicit a bee for pollination. And, as a primal force, it exerts itself at a very primitive and evolutionary preserved level. In humans, perceiving beauty is tucked away in the deepest corners of an archaic and evolutionary preserved portion of our brains. And it is here that we appreciate, recognise and value beauty. Three centuries before Christ, enlightened Greek philosopher Plato equated beauty with all that is good, realising that it is a coveted treasure. Beauty is the lubricant leading to procreation, and it very well may be the rawest of energies fuelling evolution. However, don’t mistake beauty with attractiveness. While related, they are two very distinct entities. Beautiful can be unattractive, and attractive can be ugly – for instance, look no further than 1985’s sexiest man, Mel Gibson, yelling distasteful profanities. 

All can be perceived beautiful or irreproachable – depending on the relative environment. 

To be attractive requires two parts: a form to project beauty, with a second being to receive it as beautiful. But in the cognitively complex human, the manner in which the beauty is projected is highly dependent on the projector feeling beautiful. However, herein lies the hurdle: to feel beautiful – and to project beauty – takes effort and work. It is not just a given – even for the physically advantaged. And true to all forms of human advancement, feeling beautiful requires energy to be expended in order to achieve a higher level or meaningful accomplishment.