[One Thousand Characters a Day] Insight into Beauty 'Easy Beauty' <3>

Editor's NoteThe author raises the issue that when people say 'disabled person,' they think of someone clumsy and childlike, dismissing the emotions and basic human desires that disabled people feel. The author also reflects that the 'superficial and easy beauty,' which has been regarded lightly and negatively until now, is actually something they have avoided because they could not possess it. They realize that they have lived in arrogance through 'exclusion in the name of sanctity,' and that neither 'easy beauty' nor 'difficult beauty' can be ranked superior or inferior. 'Easy beauty' is by no means less valuable than inner and complex beauty. As someone who might be considered the furthest from the socially defined external beauty, the author says, "Just because I am excluded from a certain theory does not mean that theory is wrong." Word count: 1065 characters.

The word 'disability' did not help me understand myself, but it did become a tool to decode strange and confusing moments. Moments when strangers look at me and decide what kind of person I am and what I can do. People compared their own bodies to mine. They found what was missing or lacking in my body. But since I have lived inside my body since birth, I never felt that something was lacking. Climbing stairs feels like climbing stairs. Walking feels like walking. To the eyes of those watching me, my movements probably look strange and inferior. But I had no reason to feel inferior. To feel that way, someone would have had to teach me, and there were plenty of people willing to teach me just that.

People created places I could not enter to teach me how much I was forgotten and how much I was excluded from 'real life.' I received a lot of stares but was not truly observed. I was both inside the world and above it, watching my self-awareness form from a safe corner at a distance.

When I was excluded, I also felt shame. It was like I was the only one receiving a peculiar punishment, not knowing what wrong I had done to deserve it. But alongside my shame, a twin emotion followed closely: a self-righteous hatred. I hated the non-disabled people who did not see me as a real person, did not even try to see me, and were comfortable placing me a little apart from real life. In The Republic, Plato divides people into several classes, the highest being the philosopher class. Philosophers are noble because they devote themselves to seemingly useless tasks like distinguishing experience from truth. Through Plato’s lens, I was able to reinterpret my separation from others as a mark of honor. I twisted Plato’s theory into a shield shape. Not blending into the world made me a better and wiser philosopher, turning my soul into gold and others’ souls into iron.

-Chloe Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty, translated by An Jin-yi, Hankyoreh Publishing, 25,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.