Blue Eyed Girls

Several years ago I read the book The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Yes, it was in Oprah's Book Club, but I didn't know that at the time. It just looked like an interesting read. The basic premise is a little black girl in 1940s Ohio and how different she is compared to her white classmates. She goes home every night and prays, asking God to give her blue eyes so she will be pretty like the other girls. Of course, no matter how hard she prays, her eyes remain dark brown and she is continually insulted and ridiculed for her looks. 

This always made me wonder why it was that human nature craves what it can never physically possess. Whether it be blue eyes instead of brown or to be taller or shorter, we never stop wishing for that "something else". Modern science and technology has made it possible to change some of these wants. Now you can grow longer eyelashes, get a bigger or smaller chest just by swiping a credit card or reform an entire face into a designer model.

But why? Why do we feel the compulsive need to change ourselves? No matter who you are or what you look like, there is always something about yourself you would like to change if you could. It doesn't even have to be a physical trait. People wish to be funnier, less sensitive to criticism or to be freed from crippling depression.

Oh, there's always the bandages you can slap on to fix the problem for the time being... antidepressants, plastic surgery, copious amounts of food, alcohol. It's a Russian Roulette of vices. 

That still leaves the question of why humans are diametrically opposed to what they have inherited. Is it the allure of the new and exciting? Is it jealousy of what we do not and cannot have? Why do we go to such lengths to achieve these ideals? No matter how many PSAs or commercials from Dove are made saying that you are beautiful regardless of race, size or ethnicity, people will always crave that which they cannot obtain. 




*UPDATE*
The very same day I wrote this post, I saw this article on the internet: http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/05/laser-turns-brown-eyes-blue/