The chunk 114 The message -574-

He did not want to sleep. Ahmed was looking out the window at the shrinking Japanese islands. Gratitude to the generous country and the sadness of parting with it were gradually replaced by anxiety, annoyance, and hatred for Chinese flying cats.
Ahmed mentally read from the holy Quran, Al-Baqarah surah, 286 verses:
“Allah does not require any soul more than what it can afford. All good will be for its own benefit, and all evil will be to its own loss. Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord! Do not place a burden on us like the one you placed on those before us. Our Lord! Do not burden us with what we cannot bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Guardian. So grant us victory over the disbelieving people.”

The message - 279-
Hello, Ahmed.
Also Japanese women shaved their eyebrows and drew it over the natural line. It was just 150 years ago.
Such a kind of imagination of beauty that was opposite from century to century we can see in different countries, nations, in all continents, in all times.
I would say in our state of culture that it is natural and reasonable for people to view beauty that consists: what is beautiful – is healthy, harmonious, symmetric, common. And I will be wrong here.
The fit characteristic here seems only the word common if one would follow through all the history of beauty of human's appearance in different countries. I do not have a lot of knowledge about it, but know enough to see: beauty was associated with different, often opposite things, but most importantly is that it was repeated by many women and men. Beauty of all was invented, then accepted, copied and pasted many times.
Have a look.
Today one guy from Spain sent me his photo again: he is about 30, has a mountain of muscles. It seems beautiful but it is unnatural and scary, such huge muscles. Also he has a small tattoo on his shoulder. On his black skin it is hardly seen. He said he made it in his 19, when he was stupid. In Yutmen last several years, tattoos have become so popular that I see even old enough people, men and women, with such multicolored tattoos that they could do just recently, not in their young times. Such muscular people as the guy from Spain, men and women, I also see, in generous measure, in Russia in my gym. Also I meet daily some very thin girls, with anorexia. Also I see girls and women who demonstrate their fat bodies, they are in the majority. There are a large number of those who are wearing artificial lash-eyes and make their lips bigger, swollen. Almost all women dye their hair and make bright permanent manicures and pedicures.
Is it all beautiful? People do horrible unnatural unhealthy things with their bodies to feel more beautiful and attractive, and also to be like everybody, to seem normal, or to be similar to all the rest who are significant to them because they were accepted as examples of beauty...but what kind of beauty are we talking about? About beauty in the meaning of attractiveness...and does beauty by default exist?

The message - 280-
Hello Ahmed.
Today evening while commuting home on a bus I met a young man. I don't know him and have seen today for the first time. He was with his girlfriend. He had irokez-style hairdo: his left and right sides of head were shaved to almost bold and a barber left a stripe of small-curled light-brown hair that reminded me of a stripe of a carpet, to go from his forid to the back of head. I noticed on his forehead on the left side of it a big rounded bubble looking like a small horn. Firstly I felt disgusted because I imagined it was a swell, a cancer, or a furuncle of frightening size... but then I tried to imagine it was a decoration by which he wanted to fake a horn like a centaures had. I wanted to see the other side of his head to make sure they actually were horns, but I couldn't. And I cannot help looking at the horn, struggling with the willingness to get up and to see the full head, because he sat in front of me by his back. Later I forgot about him and didn't notice they got out of the bus.
I am sure I am not alone in my feelings. People feel fear when they see something unnatural and unhealthy in appearance. If they cannot imagine why someone looks unnatural, they start looking for reasons for such appearance and usually their conclusions steer them first to the way of fear and disgust from imagining illness and  ugliness.
Why do people always love to see both beautiful faces and definitely ugly, unnaturally hideous faces? They even paid money to see someone like an elephant-man or three-headed child, giant and dwarf people, and so on. Ugliness touches people no less than gorgeous people.
Maybe abnormal and unnormal things struck people's imagination. They are afraid of being on the edge of features which are not approved by society. They prefer to be everage. And they try to change their appearance closer to an ideal and look for how to shorten a difference with the ideal and to run away from ugliness, even doing unhealthy and harmful things for the result: they want to know how they will look in a new image.
What is the ideal? It is obviously the best appreciation for human beauty. What is it? How was it formed, the ideal?
Today I met the second Japanese man I like: the first one was a scientist, biologist, who received a Nobel prize for autophagy, I don't remember his name. One year ago or more I wanted to verify the articles on the internet about the benefits from ten-hours starving. I have found his article on the site of Nobel-program. It was his speech at the award ceremony there. It was very interesting for me to read the article about his way. Since I have read it I like and honor the man. I always remember his modest life.
The second man I like very much is an artist, a couturier. He is an interesting Japanese man. I watched part of the movie about him today, a documentary. He created mostly black clothes in the movie. I like many of his ideas and his views of life. I don't know yet if he is still alive. In 1990-s he was young, about 35. Maybe he had written a book. I would like to read it but I doubt I could find it in English.
He said in the movie the phrase: "..lately I like weaknesses of people and their mistakes..these are what express an essence of a human. "


Спать не хотелось и Ахмед смотрел в иллюминатор на уменьшающиеся японские острова: серые их поблескивающие озерами пятна мелькали среди серых пятен  полупрозрачных облаков. Благодарность щедрой стране и грусть расставания с ней постепенно сменились тревогой, досадой, и ненавистью к китайским летучим котам.
Глядя на неторопливый танец туманных вихрей, лениво пропускающих лайнер через свою толщу, он мысленно прочитал из священного Корана, Аль Бакара сура, 286 аят:
“Аллах не возлагает на человека сверх его возможностей. Ему достанется то, что он приобрел, и против него будет то, что он приобрел. Господь наш! Не наказывай нас, если мы позабыли или ошиблись. Господь наш! Не возлагай на нас бремя, которое Ты возложил на наших предшественников. Господь наш! Не обременяй нас тем, что нам не под силу. Будь снисходителен к нам! Прости нас и помилуй! Ты — наш Покровитель. Помоги же нам одержать верх над неверующими людьми.”