Let's kick things off with a slightly provocative statement. Your appearance, believe it or not, is a bit of a public good. Take "kissing," for example. To kiss someone, your relationship with them needs to be pretty special. You can't just go around kissing anyone. So, a kiss isn't a public good. It's a very specific act, heavily influenced by the relationship, only allowed in certain contexts.

But appearance itself is different. Anyone can consume it through the medium of their "gaze." The moment I step out my door, whether I want it or not, my appearance is going to be observed by other people. This fact gives appearance a truly unique status. It's perhaps the only part of a human being that has a public good quality – something everyone can observe and consume, regardless of their relationship. So, in a way, if you don't go outside because you hate people's stares, it's actually a pretty logical move.

Now, let's dive into the mechanism by which appearance can turn into a real downer.

Humans have a basic aesthetic sense. It's that knack for distinguishing what's beautiful and what isn't, based on lines, colors, and their arrangement. While there's some individual variation, there's definitely a high probability that many people share a common sense of beauty. For instance, while some might find a fiery red sky beautiful, most would probably agree that a cloudless blue sky is prettier.

This idea of beauty isn't just a flat concept like "this kind of look is beautiful." Instead, it's perceived quite three-dimensionally, more like, "a person in this position, in this situation, is most beautiful when they possess this kind of impression-creating appearance." For example, the criteria for a man's appearance to make the story "a male student approached a female student crying on the street and asked if she was okay" beautiful, would be different from the criteria for a grandfather's appearance to make the story "an old man approached a female student crying on the street and spoke to her" beautiful. That's a bit of an extreme example, but there's a pretty common standard among many people for how the appearances of the characters in a story should be for that situation to resonate most dramatically with the observer.

The folks who consider appearance most three-dimensionally are often those casting actors for dramas and movies. Even if they deliver the same lines, the scene needs to be beautiful first to truly sink into people's hearts, right? They pick the person with the optimal appearance and aura to create that beauty.

The gloom we feel because of our appearance often stems from this very point. We're not actors, we're not singers, we're not even politicians, but we go through countless stories in life, and we fear missing opportunities for our stories to be more beautiful because of our looks. In a romantic situation, you'd just want to love romantically, without a sudden story where your wide forehead is shockingly exposed, making your partner jump. When you shed a tear, you'd want it to feel like a single, beautiful drop of emotional essence, concentrated with all your past feelings, not like you're "blubbering" uncontrollably. When you say something with good intentions, you'd want people to see you as a good person and for the relationship to turn more friendly and beautiful, not for it to come across as some random "busybody" human #13's meddling or unwarranted nosiness. That's the fear we carry. 

The reality that the story of my life, which I live every breath, cannot be completed in the direction I desire because of my appearance is incredibly uncomfortable and terrifying.