Klifton
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I don’t know how many muscles it takes to make a smile. Neither does anybody else, really. Oh, you’ll hear aphorisms about how it takes X number of muscles to frown, but only Y number to smile — but the values of X and Y are never consistent. That’s because nobody really knows, and nobody knows because in order to actually measure the muscles involved in making a smile, there’d have to be some scientific consensus on what constitutes a smile. You’d have to define the parameters.
I don’t know how many muscles it takes to make a smile. I hope I never find out. It would be pathetic beyond understanding for somebody to scientifically define a smile in order to measure it. It would, in fact, reduce a smile to nothing more than the utilization of specific muscles to distort the configuration of facial features. It would exclude variables that are resistant to measurement. Like joy, or the recognition of irony, or simple pleasure, or the acceptance of things you cannot change. It would ignore the reason for smiling. A smile isn’t about the muscles under the skin; it’s about the thing that sparks the smile.
I don’t know how many muscles it takes to make a smile. And I don’t care. What I know is this: a genuine smile moves me to smile back.
I’m smiling right now.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
