How did we get to this faux beauty addiction?
(Let’s be honest, many of the results of plastic surgery are not remotely beautiful…they are outright scary)
What is wrong with us? Obsessed with youth? Terrified of aging? What is wrong with aging?
When I was 23 years old (in the early 80’s) I landed, for the first time, in the USA.
On my first day, I found myself in the food court at the Mall in Orange County. I was sick to the stomach. The excess…too much food…the waste…so much disposable rubbish…there was so much about that picture for a young Aussie mind that just felt dead wrong.
And I had the thought, like others have had…that we were watching the fall of Rome. The Fall of the Empire. Not just the USA, but the excess of the West.
Today I see a photo of Renee Zellweger, the actress…and she doesn’t look at all like she did the last time I saw her…quite some time ago. I would not have even recognised her.
I have no idea her backstory, no idea what has created this…change of face. For it is a change of face. It might have been some terrible disease? Or maybe a disease of Western Civilisation?
But it made me mad. Mad as hell that we are so caught up in some overglorification of youth/image…or some other lame excuse… that women and men spend a fortune on plastic surgery.
Are we mad? Have we lost it as a human race? How can it be that we have this ridiculous excess of crazy plastic people? What the hell is wrong with aging? Or small boobs…or whatever?
How did we get to this faux beauty addiction?
I think of the Hunger Games, and the people of the capital, and I see us. And I feel sick, and sad.
Where are our real values?
There are some exceptions..but compared to the epidemic of plastic surgery those exceptions are really small in number.
And you may well ask, what has this got to do with 2:23AM…and business for good? I would say…if your business is about supporting the continued lie of eternal youth, whether that be by plastics, potions, or other crazy shit…and you seduce people to buy with the promise of some delusion, then shame on you.
How about adding real value to the world?
Oh..and in case you missed the story that is worth being told, about beauty, courage and self-esteem, then meet Turia Pitt.
She is the role model for beauty. Plus Dignity. And Courage. Oh, and she also says she is the luckiest girl in the world.
