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| Theories: Age Before Beauty |
Posted by
Schizo on Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 08:47 AM PST
How often we hear the phrases "How beautiful she must have been when she was young", "Oh no, I'm starting to look old", or even "She's so perfect, you'd never know she was 40!" People nowadays have an obsession with youth, as strong as their obsession with being underweight. Life ends at 30, unless you have the proper beauty treatments, or maybe a good plastic surgeon. Wrinkles and gray hair are a curse.
Bullshit.
People are starting to get the point about weight - you don't have to be stick-thin to be beautiful. You can see that anti-propaganda being fed us all over the media, although it is still so ingrained in us that we still long for the stick-thin bodies of supermodels. But still, our culture's standards of beauty revolve strictly around the very young. To be truly lovely, you need to look like a sixteen-year-old, or in your twenties at the most. Much time, effort, money, and often excruciating pain are spent on acheiving this.
But this is ridiculous. Let's take our media-induced blinders off for a second, and really look at these age-induced so-called blemishes.
Let's start with gray hair. I am starting to get an occasional gray hair. You don't see it, because I dye my hair, but that's not why I dye it. I am torn between my desire to be a redhead, and to have those delicate threads of pure silver running through my dark-brown hair. Ironically enough, my fascination with gray hair causes me to pluck them when I see them, if only to better admire their shine and shimmer. What is wrong with people? Gold hair is considered beautiful, but why not silver?
And wrinkles. Those delicate infintessimal lines around the corners of my eyes and mouth. I am 27, and although I still occasionally get mistaken for a high-school student by the unobservant or the flattering, my age is starting to show subtly in my skin. I love those lines, forming a filagree around my eyes, adding emphasis to my smile. Find someone you know, in their 30's or 40's, and look at those fine wrinkles, and tell me that they are not a work of natures art, time's embellishment on the smoothness of immature skin.
And that's not even taking into account older wrinkles, on those in their 70's or 80's. Skin that was once tightly molded to muscle and bone now breaks into a waterfall of draperies. No two faces drape exactly the same. The pattern of this tumbling skin displays a lifetime's collection of facial expressions. When an old woman smiles, you don't see one smile, but thousands, even millions of smiles, all shining back at you from through the years.
And this does not even include the beauty that comes just from the shining-forth of wisdom and experience. So many young people, overbrimming with typical and accepted beauty, only mar that beauty with the idiocy of their actions. But the words and actions of an elderly beauty are full of grace and appropriateness. The gentleness of their compassion, the astringant bite of wisdom, all this adds to and enhances the beauties of age.
So, don't dread aging. Revel in it. Find the loveliness in your own signs of age and in those around you. Don't let anyone kid you. The best is yet to come.
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| Age Before Beauty | Login/Create an account | 33 Comments |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by MystryssRavynDarque (MystryssRavynHI@wmconnect.com)
on Jun 22, 2004 - 12:43 PM
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I like this article and I like the way you use yourself as an example, though I am sure this could turn into an entire book on examples of men and women who force themselves to look younger through plastic surgery, the horrors of the scalpel and botox needles, and so on.
Recently my sister told me that I was starting to get smile lines and "crows feet" wrinkles at the corners of my eyes and I am only 18. She told me to get an anti-wrinkle cream to fix them. I say that smile lines must mean I am happy and I would preferr them over frown lines any day. Wrinkles on the face, on the hands, or anywhere on the body show the turmoil or adventures one has lived through. They show strength and wisdom as well as accomplishment. I'll take my wrinkles as they come, but I will start wearing sunglasses if not only to keepy my eyes working.
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Starlight (elenmea@hotmail.com) on Jul 06, 2004 - 12:36 AM
(User info | Send a Message) http://www.geocities.com/nony_one/index.html | When I was growing up, my mother had an obsession with swiss performing extract and various other semi-expensive beauty treatment items. Some were specifically for the wrinkles around the eyes, but all were supposedly required or else you would become "old" looking. I pretty much view it now as I did then, it's all a crock of shit to some degree.
When I was in my teens, I used to use creams designed for around the eyes to keep those fine lines from supposedly appearing in the first place. I would oftentimes end up with puffy eyes from the stuff. When I finally gave up bothering with the stuff, I discovered those fine lines weren't so bad or even all that extensive in the first place. Besides, they give you character anyways.
Maybe I'm just silly, or maybe I just like seeing a crinkle here and there as a sign of character. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by gothicmorman (litty_klj@hotmail.com)
on Jun 22, 2004 - 07:03 PM
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personally, i think it will be great to be old when i get there, some people ask why and say that old is so gross and blah blah blah, but how many young people can sit in rocking chairs on thayr front porch and give cookies to children then take out the rifle and yell "GET OFF MY LAWN" and be socially accepted all at the same time!... well at least i think that is the epitomy of being a crazy old granny. actually i find the "16 year olds" that have 16 year old children rather frightening... growing old is a part of life, and like expressed in this article it should be celebrated just as youth is but people these days are seeking immortality, everyone wants to be the knight in shining armour or the princess in the tower. but really, if this makes any sense at all and i have not gone to far on rantage, these roles are obsolete unless there is also the ageing king and queen, the court jesters, and the ugly witch that the prince has to fight...
the ruthless
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jun 23, 2004 - 02:13 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | | Yes! Rapunzel without the witch would have been just another chick with long hair. And how many of those fairytale heros would have gotten far without the aid of some old geezer or hag? Young people, shmung people. Youth is overrated. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by gothicmorman (litty_klj@hotmail.com) on Jul 04, 2004 - 05:10 PM
(User info | Send a Message) http:// | well i wouldent neccisarily say that, youth has it's ups as well. youth is where we get to learn all the things that we will know when we are older. young people have energy and vibe and whatnot. youth is the time in which you get to change the world and old age in when you get to complain about how fast the world is changing. each stage of life is really just as valuable as the rest of them and can each be enjoyed just as much for as long as one is there. all the lyposuctioned facelifted people are just afraid of moving on with their lives...
the ruthless |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jul 05, 2004 - 01:51 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | | Of course, all periods of life are necessary. Youth has it's reasons, if it's used properly, same as age. But it is overrated, in that most people blow it out of proportion, and cling to it at the expense of other, valuable things, until it becomes nothing but an empty shell. Unfortunately, these people probably never understood what youth was all about in the first place. My ideal would be someone who enjoys the hell out of whatever stage of life they happen to be in, and let each stage go as it passes, turning to embrace the new. It takes a certain sense of adventure and discovery that many people don't possess. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by IamSquid (undisclosed)
on Jun 22, 2004 - 09:41 PM
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This is a twofold situation: The attraction of youth and the dislike of age.
The attraction to youth is probably a blend of many different things, for one thing reliving the regret of youth. I often say to my self "that girl was CRAZY about mee, why didn't I do something?" But on a more biological level, youth is when people begin to become sexual creatures. This means that it's all new and exciting rather than casual or even mechanical. In youth we have more energy and are more enthusiastic about sex.
The fear of age is essentially the fear of death which is carved so deeply into this society to the point of mass neurosis (if not pyschosis). Many people fear death because, if nothing else they fear suffering. Seeing a person who is losing the ability to do the things we take for granted such as walking, seeing, hearing, etc. is frightening to most people.Furthermore, people who are not neccesarily Xian but exposed to Xian thinking (meaning the majority of us who grew-up in the US) fear death because they fear the idea of damnation and the older somebody is, the closer they are to death.
This is my opinion though.
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Andree on Jun 22, 2004 - 10:53 PM
(User info | Send a Message) | | We have a fear of age because this is the age of fear. Fear is what drives all our industries; not just the age-prevention indurstries. Marilyn Manson, in Bowling for Columbine, said, "It's just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea of 'Keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume.' " And he's right. Take a look back. Y2K's gonna come; we'd better buy bottled water and CB radios. SARS is gonna hit our towns; we'd better buy surgical masks. And today: our fear of fat bodies coupled with a fear of work equals low-carb bread, diet pills, and Slimfast. We need home security systems, car alarms, guns . . . but the one product I wish people WOULD buy and use out of fear is THE CONDOM. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jun 23, 2004 - 02:10 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | I think all ages have been ages of fear. From the Cold War bomb shelters to the witch burnings to all the sick atrocities that have been done in the name of fear ever since humans walked this earth. People are afraid, deathly afraid, and most of their fears can be traced to two things - death and damnation.
Ironically enough, many of the things that people do to appear young are actually pretty dangerous. How many people die of complications from a face-lift, anyway? How young are you going to look when the worms are eating you? It's irrational, but no one ever accused humanity in general of being so horribly rational in the first place. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by IamSquid (undisclosed) on Jun 23, 2004 - 05:01 PM
(User info | Send a Message) http://www.goodandevilgoround.com | These are both very good points. To the former I am in total agreement but would like to add that the US today is in an especially fearful time. We claim to be fighting a "War on Terror" but the tactics used to keep the administration in power for the most part come back to playing off of the fear of the masses.
To the latter, we never really fear death less than in our youth because in general we are not exposed to it nearly as much as we are the older we get. We grow to see those we love die one by one until our own time comes. Furthermore, in youth we tend to be more daring than cautious.
So in a sense not only is age a reminder of our own mortality but youth is almost like a means of forgetting our mortality. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com) on Jul 08, 2004 - 09:02 AM
(User info | Send a Message) http://bettie_x.tripod.com/ | Actually squid it's an inbetween sort of thing. There is the time during youth where we are "invincible" and then a time during what is still considered "youth" where we fight as hard as we can to STAY that way (30's-50's, hence the "mid life crisis. If you ask me my dad has been having the same mid life crisis since he was 20). But what I see in the "elderly" (65 or 70 and up) is a sort of compliance, an acceptance, which is why they read the obituaries, the "who died this week" always comes up at breakfast or their poker pool or stitch and bitch. It's passing conversation, it's a side note, it's an accepted part of their age and life. Not to say they don't FEAR it at some level, just not with the terrified botox zeal they might have felt some 30 years prior.
I adore most elderly people (especially the ones that are habitually cranky and snarky but in a good natured way). My 75 year old grandpa has the most handsome face ever. I love his soft face, the way his big ears stick out, the fuzz on his head. His wife laughs at me when I tell her that she IS pretty, but I think she knows it too.
I fear death, not age, but it's a love hate relationship. I'm comforted by the fact that someday I won't have to do anything anymore, have to worry about anything anymore. But I fear it's permanence and the hows and whys of it coming around. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by callei on Jun 23, 2004 - 07:18 AM
(User info | Send a Message) http://http:// | "In youth we have more energy and are more enthusiastic about sex."
I dont know about that, again the fear thing comes into to play. Disease, pregnancy, getting caught, and ridicule are, I would say, the main fears that "youth" have about sex and these often stop them from having sex.
also, women get more sexed up later in life. we can and do enjoy it more when we are 30 then when we 15. and become more enthusiastic about it as well. and partially from getting rid of fears, like body image, pregnancy, and being "bad" girls.
I think that we have more free time when we are teens to early 20's since we dont have 50 hour a weeks jobs, 10 hours of housecleaning (and are sick of living as slobs), kids taking 10-15 hours of time to give minium attention to, etc. as a teenager, a person is in school for what 35 hours a week spent with people they are willing to consider as bedmates? and may have as much as 5-10 more hours of homework that they can and do do at friends houses? and what 3-5 hours of chores a week (going on the idea of the spoiled middle-class kid here). so teens have what 20-30 hours more in thier week of free-time than older people have, a built-in dating pool, and someone else to pay the bills.
Imagine, all ye grown ups out there if you had a whole nother day off each week. how much sex would you be having? Imagine if you only worked til 3 and didnt have to be there til 8:30? what would you do with 4 more hours everyday? |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com) on Jun 22, 2004 - 10:45 PM
(User info | Send a Message) http://bettie_x.tripod.com/ | Michael just turned , I'll buy you two a pack of prune juce and yo can split it amongst yourselves.
But I aint changing either of your "adult undergarments". nope. won't do it. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jun 23, 2004 - 02:21 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | Damn it Feral, I want to come! I need a rig, bad! I SO almost got a CJ for my 27th birthday, and it didn't happen because we didn't have a place to build it. I haven't been boonin' since Michael discovered his Ram Charger was too rotted out to put a lift kit in. We had to trade it in for a car sans rust.
Oh, and you can teach me sword fighting, too? Always been a dream of mine - a la the Man in Black from The Princess Bride. "I am not left handed either!"
Or do I have to wait until I'm 30, too? |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jun 23, 2004 - 02:16 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | | My brother just turned 30, and my fiance will be 30 in November. And they're just babies. But I guess that still entails diaper changing. Damn it, can't escape it, I guess. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Comedian (eccentrically_long@yahoo.com)
on Jun 22, 2004 - 11:01 PM
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"Age and treachery will beat youth and proficiency any day."
There was a line I heard on Comedy Central recently that stuck with me -
'How old are you, son?"
"22."
"Yeah, well I'm thirty-six. You ever been thirty-six?"
"No."
"Well I've been twenty-two, so SHUT THE FUCK UP."
Please don't misconstrue my point here for supporting age in any sense. Sure, experience is the greatest teacher, but you can be youthful and experienced. Not jaded; cynicism is the destructive element that erodes at the wisdom of any lesson a person learns. I'm just saying, for the point of points, that age rarely refines taste of an individual - people age worse than wine. Much worse.
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jun 23, 2004 - 02:04 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | That is a point - and a very valid one too. Only what is originally of high quality will age with quality. What is already ugly will only get uglier with time. No one gets many points in my book simply for having an earlier birthdate than me. It's what is done with those years that makes them assets, or even flaws.
But, like a truly great wine, people with the right stuff in them only get better with age. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com)
on Jun 23, 2004 - 02:26 AM
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BTW, what is with these little yellow underlined links in my article? I certainly didn't intend that my article on the beauty of aging should become an ad for anti-wrinkle cream! LOL
It's like that ad for anti-depressants at the bottom of the article speaking out against unnecessary medication of emotional problems.
"Isn't it ironic... don't you think... a little too ironic..."
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jun 23, 2004 - 06:40 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | | Probably. I know I have it, but everytime I try to get rid of it, the computer won't let me go to any websites. I can go online, and see the stupid AOL homepage, and check my e-mail, but nothing else. So I end up re-installing all the backups the program made when it deleted the spyware, just so I can use the internet again. It's driving me crazy. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by MystryssRavynDarque (MystryssRavynHI@wmconnect.com) on Jun 23, 2004 - 08:31 AM
(User info | Send a Message) http://kauai.vibechild.com/~amanda/ | | Eep, that really sucks Schiz. Recently I had to deal a little with some spyware and my mom's old computer was full of it. I know a lot of people here on shmeng have dealt with it as well. Maybe ask someone who knows a bit about how to cure it. I had to get help too. Good luck defeating it. |
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Re: Spyware targeting age
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jul 04, 2004 - 06:12 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | | Yeah, I tried SpyBot Search and Destroy, only it searched and destroyed more than just my spybots, and somehow mysteriously kept me from getting on anything online except my AOL homepage. (Yes, I know, AOL. My fiance is used to it, so that's what we have.) I ended up using the AOL Spyware thingie, which eliminated the worst of the problem without screwing up my internet. It wasn't as strict as Search and Destroy, but it was designed to work with AOL, so that was good! |
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Re: Spyware targeting age
by Domkitten (saradevil@saradevil.com) on Jul 04, 2004 - 07:08 AM
(User info | Send a Message) http://www.saradevil.com | That sucks. Not AOL I understand why people still use it, and how used to it you can become.
I'd still try AdAware. I think the problem might be that AOL installs some spyware itself. Hard to say. But hopefully you can read your article now and have it irony free. |
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Re: Spyware targeting age
by Schizo (Aranea@spidersdance.com) on Jul 04, 2004 - 08:34 AM
(User info | Send a Message) | | I wouldn't be surprised if AOL was hand in glove with some spyware. But at least I don't have wierd underlined words, and hundreds of pop-ups anymore. |
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by fairy_ofdarkness (princess_piiti@hotmail.com)
on Jun 24, 2004 - 02:07 AM
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i loved it! great job! i love tha part about the gray hair, and i agree totally.. whats so bad about gray hair? i find it very pretty on the pplz the age for it ^_^ i honestly dont wee why ppl constaly worry about how they look.....yeah, so a little bit of make up now and then or even alot....or dying (SP?) yur hair for fun, or yu love the color......thats different than, OMG!!! IM GETTING OLD AND FAT!!! I NEED TO GO SPEND MY MONEY BECAUSE IM MARRIED, GOT KIDS, AND NO ONE REALLY CARES HOW I LOOK!!!! LOL...sry...kinda hyper......
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Domkitten (saradevil@saradevil.com)
on Jul 03, 2004 - 02:54 PM
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Personally Schiz, I don't think you look a day over jail bait. And a line, a wrinkle, will only add to that. I love the way age looks on people who wear it well. I think think the real question of age and beauty comes when you have so many people who wear it badly.
I like to think of it this way. It's all about attitude. Ann Margret manages to still be sexy because she knows she is (and yes, I have a Bye Bye Birdie fetish and I'm not afriad to admit it). My grandmother on the hand talks day in and day out about how old she is, and how it has affected her, and because of it, I can't help but to look at her and think how old she is, and how badly it has hampered her.
What we need is wrinkle cream, the kind that gives you wrinkles and lines and makes it okay to have them. There was a time when being older meant having more character, not less beauty.
However, from what I've seen here, and hope to take advantage of myself someday, Shmeng women and men over 30 got it going on something feirce. I mean check out Callei in her new glasses, or Mono on a mountain top, these are are spring chickens, and they are older than (I'm thinking but I can't think of anything good) oooh, older than MRD.
I say hooray for age in all it's forms. Embrace it because like it or not, it will embrace you.
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Re: Age Before Beauty
by Starlight (elenmea@hotmail.com)
on Jul 06, 2004 - 12:50 AM
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I gotta tell you that I really loved reading this article. It points out a few things that I've always thought were quite beautiful myself. Silver hair is a beautiful thing, not something to dread.
I've always found silver streaks in hair to be a beauty mark of sorts. When I was a kid, my mother used to have hair down to about her upper thigh. It was straight as a board, very dark, and had a long silver streak about an inch across that was gorgeous. I always thought it made her look a bit liker Yvone de Carlo as Lily Munster. When I tell anyone about it I usually refer to it as my mother having had a Lily Munster streak.
I also find the silvering of temple hair to be quite flattering to a person's looks- not just in men, but in women also. I think everyone should do exactly what they want with their hair for whatever reason, and I refuse to subscribe to the idea that as a person gets older then they should wear shorter hair. Bollocks to that!
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