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Lately, I've been thinking a lot (maybe too much) about how beauty alienates us from our present self. The concept of beauty changes the way we think about time and existing in our physical body. In this view, the notion that there is always a 'better', 'more beautiful', 'thinner' version of ourselves that we strive toward inherently means that we don't experience the physicality of the now in the way that we should. There is a future ideal of ourselves that doesn't exist yet in the present.

I don't want to be too dramatic, but I am actually going to discuss Marxist theories of labour now. Within his framework, Marx defines alienation as the separation from one's true self. Capitalism appropriates workers' labour, hence estranging them from their labour, and subsequently, themselves. Can we view beauty as a form of labour? I certainly think so. I recently saw a video of an influencer online complain, with bite and sardonic humour, that 'being hot is a full-time, part-time job'. She was kidding - but she also wasn't wrong.

Beauty, primarily for women in the modern, capitalistic, wage-and-workplace-driven Global North, is judged against a likeness to largely patriarchal and Eurocentric standards. Placing this in the age of social media and Kardashian-face, these standards create labour. This form of labour isn't that of Marx, but rather, the 'everything shower' and shaving every inch of our bodies and styling our hair and putting on makeup (and spending money on that makeup!) and attending expensive workout classes and even filling and freezing our faces with Botox and filler and shaving down our jaws and reconstructing our noses.

And then we trade this labour, this beauty, for capital. Social capital, acceptance, attention, and even actual monetisation and aggrandising of the self. And the more of ourselves we wheel out to trade for wealth and power, the less that is left unalienated; the less that is the present, true self. I often wonder how much of the wealth, power, status, and achievements I've accumulated have been because I largely appeal to men. For years, I’ve worked as a hostess and maître d in several fine dining restaurants, and half of my counterparts have often been models. When I interviewed for those jobs, was my resume being studied, or my blonde hair and comically long legs? The central problem thus comes from conceptualising this as capital: I have become indebted to the men and patriarchal structures that have granted me this power. To paraphrase de Beauvoir, I have taken nothing that men have not been willing to grant - I have only received.

We eternally strive toward that more perfect version of ourselves that exists in an imaginary future plane, and it becomes our daily work to achieve that ideal self. It is Sisyphus and his stone. This beautiful, ideal self is always just out of grasp. You can always do more. You can always be thinner and more beautiful and tweak that last little insecurity and present better. You never quite make it to that perfect version of you. Simultaneously, with time, we age. We look less like our younger, more beautiful self. Time works in both directions; creating a friction where the present self is always denied, no matter through which lens it is examined. There is never a moment in the pursuit of beauty where we can occupy our 'now' selves. It is alienation at the very core of the concept - in time, in labour, and in physicality.

Anyway, I'm off to the gym and to go get an expensive haircut.