(I'm probably the last guy on earth one would expect to be involved in any way in the cosmetics business. But my stepdaughter, Josie Maran, produces non-toxic, natural makeup - www.josiemaran.com , and on occasion I am asked to suggest words and ideas for marketing for her company. One fun project was coming up with the names for her first round of lipstick colors! This is a "thought piece" I wrote for her recently: some musings about beauty.)

The human brain functions as a "neural net", which operates differently than a typical computer's fixed mode of manipulating data. The brain processes information by "weighting" inputs from many sources; at a critical level of input, there is an output. There is a level of unpredictability wired into the structure of our nervous systems. So, while we do have innate, predictable patterns of seeing and responding to the world, at the same time we are wired in such a way that we can find beauty in surprising forms. There are alternative neural channels in our brains that enable us to experience beauty in novel ways, far beyond the standard assumptions about what "looks good".

The "wabi sabi" understanding of beauty, in which asymmetry plays such an important role, may be connected to the origin of the universe. "Chirality", or "handedness", is a quality not only of which hand we use to write or throw a ball, but of molecules and atomic particles. "The universe is asymmetric," said Louis Pasteur, the 19th century French chemist/microbiologist. It has been said by physicists that the "big bang" was the result of quantum mechanical asymmetry: the universe came to be as a result of "handedness" in the primordial singularity. Who knows? Perhaps our minds are wired to appreciate the beauty of a dark spot on one cheek but not the other, or of a slight tilt of the lips to the left, because we owe our very existence to this kind of asymmetry.

Our experience of beauty often points us into the unknown. What is beautiful often is mysterious, alluring us with the possibility of discovering the unseen behind what we see. Beauty isn't "what you see is what you get". It suggests that there is a story behind what we see; some kind of struggle, perhaps. Which is why some of the loveliest things are humble, dented, used, "distressed". And people are often most beautiful when they expose hints of their vulnerabilities. Perhaps this is why people get tattoos, piercings, etc - to give themselves the appearance of having been marked or injured by life's hard knocks. They think they have to invent such hard knocks if they haven't had enough of them yet! Better to let the real marks show - by being emotionally honest and naturally letting hints be seen of your life's trials and tribulations, through your manner and your expressions.

The relationship of beauty and desire is one that torments many people. Beauty is something that we want, but what would it mean to have it, since it is always in the eye of the beholder? This reality makes futile the effort to grasp and control and own beauty. The way out of this monkey-trap is to relax, give up this grasping, and realize that you are the beauty that you see, not the beauty that others see, nor the beauty you want them to see. If you see beauty all around you, every day, in everyday things - if you look for that beauty and bask in it and enjoy it, you will become a reflection of it. When you see and gratefully appreciate beauty, in its many and surprising forms, this is ultimately what makes you a beautiful person.... far more than any attempt you make to change the way you look.