Beauty Immunity?

It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . ."

The word doesn't come easily.

". . . ignoring me."

Bell is laughing. It's at himself.

"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

These profound thoughts are from a piece I read on The Washington Post: Pearls Before Breakfast. One of the world’s most brilliant violent virtuoso was playing classic masterpieces on a very busy working morning. He appeared like a street side musician; only he was THE musician – Joshua Bell! But did any of the thousands notice? No prizes for guessing.

The little experiment showed our very intrinsic nature:-

We appreciate beauty only with a price tag.

Pay a thousand dollars and you will never criticize him. In fact if you had put a street musician on the stage and tagged him with the same amount of money; voila you would have found a winner.

Makes me think – do we even understand beauty? Or is this pre-assumption incorrect. My brother loves hard rock and dark rap music. He swears by it; mum calls it noise. So who is the illiterate?

Beauty is personal. Deeply personal....