Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is as beauty does. Beauty is only skin-deep. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. There are so many clichйs about beauty that the concept is almost a clichй in itself.

On the other hand, my Webster’s, that icon of information, parses beauty as “the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations, a meaningful design or pattern, or something else.”

This puts Mr. Webster at the sublime, rather than the mundane, end of the bell curve.

I’m not sure anyone else cares, but my definition for beauty is that quality in things that stirs our souls. Makes us smile. Or makes us remember. For a romantic, it can be a sunset in mid-September that reminds the person how wonderful nature is. For a financial analyst, it can be an up day in the market that erases the previous week’s losses. There’s a sense of relationship between the beholder, if you will, and the beheld.

Specifically, what passes as beauty for me? It’s that occasion where the universe offers something special and I only have to enjoy. I don’t have to create it or justify it or pay for it. It just happens, usually unexpected. It could be a bird’s song, a letter saying one of my essays has been accepted for publication, or a note from a friend. What is constant is the element of positive surprise.

Clichйs and definitions notwithstanding, beauty should be an integral part of one’s life, no matter how it occurs.