It’s Not A Simple Vanity
I’m too stubborn to get old. I want to do things for myself. Admitting weakness seems an animal-like defeat and I’ll be eaten ~ spirited away by vultures, feasted upon by scavengers and all those years I laughed and looked pretty to protect myself are worthless when your hair and teeth fall out.
I’m not afraid of death, try not to worry about diseases, am slightly concerned about living with a serious impairment to the faculties which bring me joy but if I were to become ugly to myself, I don’t know how I could bear that.
We live in a toxic culture. Beauty and youth have always been lovers (how we idolize perfection, no matter what the cost). Now we have AI and Botox, we can define, refine, re-define beauty (I don’t want to think of Hitler here but how can we forget his ‘Aryan Project’, highly applauded and supported by intelligent people. How can we forget?)
It’s not a simple vanity. It’s not so important that *you* find me attractive, I just don’t want this hill I’m on to crumble. Pretty girls become pretty women become old ladies. I never thought that I was beautiful. It really shouldn’t matter. I’ve read plenty of books with promising covers which didn’t measure up, it’s true you can’t judge, but you can gamble and surmise. And you can deliver what you promise. When inner and outer match, you don’t care about the wrinkles, or the bald spots, or the less than perfect teeth.
How we admire and fawn over the fastest, strongest, wealthiest, smartest most beautiful, until they’re not. Always looking for the brightest star, we shove the fading out of sight, sad reminder of our mortality.
When my star fades, as it surely must, it’s rather like a flower’s life; in time it blooms, brings joy, revels in beauty, and begins its declination. When my star fades, as it surely will, let it be said that it was beautiful.
LBM 2/9/2023
