“Smile, please!”

A sudden realization hit me as my eyes distractedly ran through a series of smiling faces on my Facebook friends list. Everyone was smiling – every single one of the faces that I saw. Not surprising, you would think. But still, it hit that when people want to put their best face forward, they pick a smiling face. Why on earth? What is this universal tendency that attracts people to smiling faces? Not only their own but also of others. And how did this language become so universal when differences abound in every other realm?

Whole to Part

We start out by taking pictures of the whole. Whole people from top to toe. Gradually we transition, realizing that the whole isn’t what the heart wants to see. It is this part. Or that. Or another. Slowly we are charmed. By the hand, the foot, this fingernail, that ear, the smile… The person pulls us in, and we slowly, slowly surrender. Hmmm.