I believe that Armstrong’s statement, “To regard beauty as a luxury adornment or a social signifier was to miss the true potential of the experience,” was a way in which he wanted to convey that beauty can just be beauty and have no one definition by which society has to give to it. Beauty to me is the feeling I get when I come home from school on breaks and get to see my family. Seeing my dog approach an older age makes me appreciate her more, and all the other things my family members do for me. Having to younger brothers I have paved a path for while instilling in them what I have learned through my experiences is certainly a wonderful feeling. Especially when I get to see the men they are becoming. My mother always asking if there is anything she can do for me, my father always striking up conversations with the three of his sons about sports or serious topics are memories I find beautiful. To others, they may chalk up the idea of family not being an important thing to them, or even something they do not enjoy that could be problematic in their life. However beauty to me does not have to be beauty to someone else, and beauty is given its own definition by whoever decides to call something beautiful by which they deem appropriate. Beauty to the culture I’ve been raised in would directly coincide with music. Where we live there are so many different cultures and backgrounds, but we all find beauty and appreciation in the music we love. The ability to relate to others and express yourself just through your own taste in music. New England in its own culture would always find the patriots winning the super bowl one of the most beautiful things to witness, because it brings out such raw emotion and happiness.

Armstrong often quoted Schiller and reflected on his thoughts, writing, “For Schiller, true beauty is whatever speaks powerfully to both sides of our nature at the same time. When we find something beautiful, we are called towards a vision of harmonious perfection. This is not only a quality in the object, but a longing in ourselves.” (Armstrong). When we seem a chance for our moral character to act and do something we believe society would respect one for, this creates a sense of happiness and pride in the individual. For example, someone snatches an old woman’s purse on a sidewalk and you chase the thief down and catch him. you had no relationship to the woman or the person stealing from her, but your own morals were called into question as a bystander with the ability to right something you viewed as wrong, and you acted on those morals so that you would reward yourself with the sense of pride that in itself can be seen as beautiful, and to prevent the feeling of guilt and self-shame for not defending your morals and allowing something to occur that you viewed as wrong.