Universal Beauty

There is no such thing as universal truth. Everyone has different perceptions of the same events, and everyone reacts differently to those perceptions.

I was walking in the Great Mall today, and I saw this couch in a store called “Casa de Elegance” or something equally ridiculous not because of the Spanish, but because of the irony. Read on.

Casa de Elegance sells furniture. I’m not a furniture expert; I can’t tell you about couches from the Late Victorian Era, or who designed this couch or that chair. I am simply a man who sits on couches. I do not study them or know about them. Thus, a store so obviously marketing itself in the niche of “faux-nice furniture attempting to fool people who know nothing about furniture” should, in theory, trick me into buying a “nice” couch.

The only problem is that the couches look like this:
















I saw the couch from outside the store, and I thought it so hideous that I needed to go inside the store to take a picture without the glare from the store windows. I needed an unobstructed picture of this anti-miracle.

The gold paint. The purple fabric. The print. And the couch wasn't comfortable. I just don't get it.

The manager saw me take a picture. He winked at me as if I was a hooker and he was a John. “That’s a nice couch, huh? Sending a picture to your friends? Nice!” The confusing part was that this man was actually serious. His confidence was not a guise. This statement was not a ploy to instill customer confidence in a shoddy product. He actually believed in his couches. I can't really explain how I know this, but I do. I simply got the vibe that he really enjoys these couches. I didn’t have the heart to tell him where the picture was really going, so I simply replied, “Something like that.”

This too-suave salesman spoke comfortably, and not with the slightest hint of desperation—he must actually sell these couches to people! He was probably thinking, “Hey. Buy the couch. But if you don’t, I’ve got hundreds of other people willing to buy that beauty.” So this couch, this monstrosity, has advocates in the form of salesmen and customers.

There is no such thing as universal truth. Even a couch, seemingly universally ridiculous and repugnant, has a salesman/representative who, in the deepest and most fundamentally serious use of the word, genuinely believes in its the beauty and functionality.

This is a real-life application of the rule: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. After the trip to the mall, I couldn’t be more convinced.