‘the human element’
In 2011, the R&B Singer-Songwriter Chris Brown released a song called ‘Beautiful People’, featuring and produced by the Italian DJ Benny Benassi. This piece of music evokes feelings of nostalgia whenever I listen with its blend of Electro House, Dancehall and Europop influenced by Chris Brown’s R&B roots.
Embrace
Yet more importantly, I love the meanings I take from and associate with its lyrics and video. The ethereal chorus of the song starts with the lyrics ‘Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere I go – Everywhere that I’ve been the only thing I see is – Is beautiful people, beautiful people’ whilst the video begins with Chris and his friends FREELY vibing + riding two-wheeled micro scooters through bright city streets deep into the night.
I love the purity + positive energy I sense from their activity, because there is an air of euphoria cascading in synergy with the symphony. Everything encountered isn’t black and white, nor is it grey and banal, but instead embraced with a fresh vigour and curiosity, an INNOCENT excitement that enables you to explore and absorb the depth + richness of everything you discover.
You’re living life with an openness + heightened, uninhibited curiosity (innocence) whilst embracing and revelling in its complexities (excitement). All whilst enjoying yourself, your company, and having fun in the moment. It’s beautiful.
Exchange
As the video proceeds, clips of Chris + Benny interacting with an array of friends and collaborators they can vibe and create with, be free, themselves and feel comfortable with, yet who also appreciate them for who they are, are shown. Unsurprisingly, many of these people are fellow artists from various realms of expression, and I believe they are purposefully shown because of how they relate and what they mean to one another.
The specific clips reveal exchanges of people understanding + appreciating each other’s beauty through the expressive realm and medium of music. Both sets of people thus reflect each other through the interests, values and qualities they can appreciate and exchange, regardless of any differences they may possess.
Many of these sentiments are conveyed through the following lines Chris sings in both verses of the song: ‘live your life, live your life, let the love inside – it’s your life, it’s your life, your beauty’s deep inside, inside you’, and ‘don’t let ‘em bring you down, no, the beauty is inside you’.
Chris conveys a deep sense of empowerment by encouraging you, the listener, to evoke your autonomy, to be free and take control, to be yourself and show who you truly are inside because regardless of what others may think, say or do, this holds high value, this is beautiful.
Become
But simultaneously, it’s about unearthing this beauty with people and in places that enable you to articulate + stimulate what is inside you; all that makes you who you are when you feel safe, comfortable, well, strong, happy, healthy, active, and ALIVE. People and places that reflect parts of who you are, remind you of who you truly and deeply are, but more importantly, also enable you to learn more about who you continue to become.
We aren’t human beings, but human becomings. We are layers of fabric constantly (re)weaving ourselves, a canvas that continues to (re)paint itself, or pastures that continue to (re)plant and (re)sow their seeds and grains.
Become? Yes, become. I believe our qualities, values, and capacities are forever within us, but we are constantly evolving through exchange with phenomena external to us. We aren’t human beings, but human becomings. We are layers of fabric constantly (re)weaving ourselves, a canvas that continues to (re)paint itself, or pastures that continue to (re)plant and (re)sow their seeds and grains.
We do this simply through living our lives when engaging all that is inside us with a plethora of people and places across our lifetimes. This largely manifests through encounters + interactions such as journeys, discoveries, conversations, trips, projects, courses, adventures and relationships.
Admire + Appreciate
People never cease to evoke every mild and intense emotion, from serenity to ecstasy, from annoyance to rage, in one another. I’m sure many experience anything and everything from awe to disgust when encountering others. I feel sad saying this, but with time and experience, in contemporary society, I encounter more people who frustrate + disappoint me.
I strive to always see the colours and contours in the people and places I experience. To encounter them with a blank canvas + open mind, ready to be the first to extend my palm so THEY can paint their picture. But to encounter that synergy and compatibility is rare, where you feel like you can reflect, embrace, relate to and exchange with the phenomena you find yourself with.
However, those rare moments and encounters when you do experience that chemistry are worth living for, and I want to appreciate them. Engaging in the act of such appreciation itself is a beautiful blessing and privilege, especially when you can be yourself throughout.
Despite the flurry of fury I feel in contemporary humanity, I will always hold onto the hope that one day, somewhere, someone or some people will come my way and push the boundaries of what I know of human potential + possibility. Push it in a manner that enables us to not only embrace + exchange, but to also enhance, our beauty.
Revised March 2022
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