When my son was born, there was some concern about his being OK. Especially his aunt had, initially, some concerns about the head being flat on the back, and then, when that turned out to be no problem, another possible problem she saw was that he possibly had too short legs.

But that also turned out not to be a problem, so neither does he now have a flat head nor dwarf legs, but instead, it soon became apparent that he was a very good-looking boy. Soon the word was that he would be a heartbreaker and that the girls would follow him in hordes.

These new predictions turned out to be true, and I have seen several females of all ages fall head over heels for him. On top of his looks, he also has that James Dean gene that can be another nail in the coffin for any female with resonance on that wavelength. Just look at him…

From the very beginning, I held, contrary to pretty much everybody else’s belief, the opinion that these good looks are a curse rather than a virtue. Why would that be? Everybody will love him, even if only for his looks, right? True, but for how long and at what price?

The problem is that he will not have to learn the basic forms of human interaction. There will be no need for him to learn to put his best side forward – because it’s already there. Just as a blind person will develop a much sharper sense of hearing, so does an ugly person learn to be accepted and/or liked by others by developing sharper skills in giving attention to others or compassion.

A person with very good vision does not need to develop good hearing, so neither does the very good-looking person need to develop interpersonal skills and become a ‘nice’ person.

Now we can throw in another deadly ingredient into the mix – shyness. If that good-looking person is shy, it will cause him or her to fall back onto the safest methods of being accepted – the looks; it will become more and more important to look good. On the heels of the need to look good, other forms of inferior personal traits will become relevant, like status, money, and popularity, while more important goals like happiness and spiritual fulfillment fall by the wayside.

This is a mechanism very similar to the dead ends on the path to enlightenment, as described in the article Bad Enlightenment (Edit 2026: no more; the domain sold a long time ago, and the content, even though initially saved for posterity, is nowhere to be found). A prime example of the deadliness of this curse of good looks is the large number of dead or messed-up movie stars in Hollywood. They could (and do) have it all, but then, as in the case of Marilyn Monroe, they leave the current plane because they can not stand their superficial existence anymore.

But what can be done about all that?