Sydney Spies and the Curse of Beauty.

Sydney Spies is, in most eyes, a beautiful girl. She is also, alas, seemingly quite unpopular at her High School. The reason? She wants to be seen in a certain way – and the authorities, and it seems, her fellow students, don’t want her to be seen in that way.

Sydney Spies is suffering from what I call the Curse of Beauty. This is the counterpart to the hostility that very intelligent people often receive from their more ordinary fellows. Truly beautiful people are rather loathed by their same sex colleagues (except the gay ones I expect). An instinctive enmity exists between people of ordinary looks, and people of exceptional looks, of the same sex. This is, in my view, what Sydney Spies is experiencing. Basically, the ugly people around her, can’t stand her. (Let’s be blunt.)

Sydney Spies attempted to have a picture of her in a yellow skirt and black off the shoulder top placed in the Durango High School yearbook as her Senior Year photo. This was refused by Durango High School, whose authorities were of the opinion, in the words of Brian Jaramillo, that it would be unprofessional. He said: “We are an award winning yearbook. We don’t want to diminish the quality with something that can be seen as unprofessional.”

My reaction to this is quite simple: the Durango High School is run by conformist, narrow-minded morons. The rejected photo is not too strong for inclusion, in my view. It just shows something that is not allowed in Durango High School: a personality. Sydney Spies is showing her innate personality in the construction and composition of the photograph. She is showing herself as she would like to be seen. However, at Durango High School, it seems that everyone must conform to an ideal of what is “professional” - that is strait-jacketed within a narrow set of rather dull rules and limitations about what is an acceptable photograph.

A school yearbook should show the people of the school as they really are. It should show them in all their diverse character. It should not be a robotic showpiece in which everyone is presented in the same set of limited ways to create an overall “look” that is deemed “award-winning”. It should be true to the personalities in the school. Quite clearly, the Durango High School yearbook is not true to the personalities of the students. It is actually a constructed lie, that seeks to present the Durango High School students in a certain way that is deemed “acceptable”. It is a photographic fraud, thereby. I would suggest that the only truthful photograph in the Durango High School yearbook may be the very ones they rejected of Sydney Spies. In fact, they rejected three of her submitted photographs – all for pretty much the same reason one intuits – she is just too attractive. (Though they said the last one missed their deadline). Instead, they used her school ID photograph!

There is one positive side to this controversy, from Sydney Spies’ point of view. She wished to be seen in a certain way. She wished to present her personality through a particular kind of image. Well, now she has, to the whole world – for one of those rejected yearbook photos has been run by news agencies around the world. So, the wish for Durango High School to censor their student, Sydney Spies, has had the unintended effect of making her much more famous than a yearbook would have done. That strikes me as suitably funny.

There is a not so funny side to this though. Sydney spies has experienced considerable bullying from her fellow students at Durango High School since all this fuss began. This is characteristic of the Curse of Beauty, as I describe it. I am certain...100% certain that ALL the bullies are ugly in comparison to her. This controversy around her yearbook photograph is just giving an excuse to the ugly ones to take out their resentment for her beauty, on her. A beautiful person would understand her position and viewpoint and would, in my view, be very unlikely to bully her. I am sure that the resentment she has experienced at Durango High School has come from those who are challenged in the looks department. This is parallel to the kind of resentment gifted kids often receive, from their less intelligent colleagues. It is always the dumb ones who hate the smart. Just so, it is always the plain, or even ugly ones, who hate the beautiful.

I wish Sydney Spies well and hope that she becomes the successful model she aspires to be. No-one should ever be in the position of being bullied because of their innate gifts as Sydney Spies is being – not if that gift is beauty, intelligence or any other gift. All who are gifted, in whatever way, should be welcomed for their gifts – for those gifts make the world a better place. Durango High School has forgotten that. It has proven itself, in this “scandal”, to be an ugly place – ugly at heart and, no doubt, ugly by sight, too.

Best of luck Sydney Spies. I hope you get to be seen as you wish to be.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Is Japan a culture of misery?

The first thing you should know about Japan, is that a lot of Japanese people kill themselves. By doing so, they declare, most potently, that something is not right in Japanese society.

Last year, 30,777 Japanese citizens made the ultimate criticism of their society: they killed themselves to get away from it. In a nation of 127 million Japanese, that is a rate of one person in 4,140 killing themselves every single year. Think about that number. Think about how many people you have met in your lifetime. If you were living in Japan someone - or perhaps several people - that you had personally met and known, would kill themselves, every single year. That is most sobering. Only Russia - a country of many troubles - can "boast" of a higher suicide rate.

I have never lived in Japan. I have never experienced what it is that makes so many Japanese people so miserable. However, I have met many Japanese people who have escaped from it, to some degree, for some time. What they say, is very telling.

I once knew a member of the government of a large Japanese city. He was living and working in Singapore. I asked: "When are you going back to Japan?"

"Never, I hope.", he said, with a surprising passion.

"Why?"

"Japan is a terrible society." His lips were tight with unpleasant memories.

"But you work in government!"

"I know."

I didn't get a fuller explanation out of him, unfortunately. He mumbled something about it being a "very unforgiving society" and wouldn't clarify more.

There is something awry in a country, when members of its own government perceive it as a terrible place.

What has brought me to discuss this matter is an event many of you will have heard of: the stabbing of 17 people - seven of whom have since died - by a 25 year old Japanese man, Tomohiro Kato, who was "tired of life" and wanted to take as many people with him as he could. He first crashed a vehicle into pedestrians in Akihabara - an electronics and maid cafe district in Tokyo - then jumped out and began stabbing the three people he had just run over. Then he rampaged through the area stabbing out at random, roaring all the while.

Shocking as this murderous event is, it is not an isolated incident in Japan. It is becoming a bit of a Japanese tradition. Japanese youngsters, sick of life, and sick of Japan, are taking up weapons and going out and killing their fellow citizens (or is that fellow sufferers?)

A clue as to what is happening is that Japan is a very conformist society - perhaps the most conformist in the world. You are either in, and accepted, or you are out - and rejected. If you are one who does not fit in, Japan can be a very cruel place. It seems that some outsiders - or people who have "failed" in Japanese terms, in some way - are taking their frustrations out on random strangers.

This does not look like a trend that is going to go away. Suicide rates are rising. Japan shows no signs of dropping its insistence on absolute conformity - and people are still, consequently, becoming absolutely miserable. The death penalty - which Japan has, and has used in similar cases - is no deterrent for precisely one reason: the perpetrators are sick of life and SUICIDAL, as well as murderous. The fact that they get the death penalty for their crimes is actually giving them exactly what they seek, anyway.

So, in Japan's case, harsh penalties are unlikely to be the answer - however a gentler society is. If Japan were a kinder culture to its people; if it were more inclusive, more forgiving and less prone to rejecting those that don't fit in, there would not be any such rampage incidents. People would be happier, more fulfilled - and suicide rates would begin to fall.

Japan should stop focusing on materialism, as its societal goal, and start focusing on happiness. If the people were happy, they wouldn't kill themselves in huge numbers...nor would they kill each other. Such deaths are a sure sign of a society that has taken the wrong path. It is time Japan changed direction, before it loses, perhaps forever, its erstwhile reputation for being a safe, low-crime society.

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