The Face Of Man

The Face of Man

How phenomenal the face of man! It can lunch a thousand ships into ferocious battle, it can incite anger or love in a heart, it can even inspire another to do crazy things. Yet the awesome may also be awful, and the face of man has caused so much tragedy and suffering. Nothing is more terrible than an awe-striking, beautiful face, except for the obsession of one's own face, otherwise known as vanity. The many myths of the Greeks are littered with stories of the vain and the proud; such include Narcissus, Icarus and Phaeton. But none measure up to the tragedy that the vain and the proud characters in the Trojan War had caused. First there was Helen, whose face was fought over. Obsessive Menelaus, who coveted Helen so much, did everything he could to make her his for all eternity, or maybe it was his own vanity that made him refuse to see the fact that she did not love him. And then there were the three goddesses of the Iliad; Athena, Aphrodite and Hera. Since Paris chose Aphrodite over the other two, Paris was despised and cursed by Hera the Vain. She brought Paris' kingdom war and sorrow and thus the fall of Troy. But in real life there are no vain lightning bolt wielding gods, only man, and what has happened can only be blamed upon man.

All politicians are vain; they treat their reputation with more care than their own mother. People seem to have this instinctual love for attention which, I believe, is the cause of so many problems. Our leaders now and before and (though I hope not but I bet) in the future, get into office only because of their popularity which they treasure beyond words. But I'm not saying that only the politicians are vain. If I said that then call me a hypocrite. We all have our vain moments. As I said, it's instinctual. Funny though that one's self image means so much to him/her. Maybe it has something to do with Darwin's theory: being