Friday, December 13, 2013

Pretty Young Thing?

You are a beauty with brains. The magnificence of your mind complements the wisdom of your words and the luster of your looks.

But THEY will love you for your pretty face - ONLY.

At first you dismiss the admiration as superficial and insist that you be heard instead instead of being scanned and seen. But that doesn't ever  happen.

Your dazzling smile, your flattering dresses, your flawless make up outdo your wit, humor and speech before the masses. You are attended well to by sales persons, given favors by people of power, photographed more and proposed by rich men.

With time you start enjoying the attention. In fact, you feed on it. It becomes part of your identity.

Your brain gets consumed by the high.

Two decades later your pretty face wrinkles. Your smile is flanked by laugh lines, your dresses no more flatter you and make up feels heavy. The crown of thick hair that earlier adorned your head turns gray.

You panic.

You pay a dozen visits to the best parlors, dermatologists and plastic surgeons. Botox stretches your skin tight, a lip filler makes your pout perky and a surgery rids growing eye bags. Five years later, you get a neck lift, an eye brow lift and a nose job to 'correct' what age did to you. And then...

You Realize ...

All these attempts reveal what you try to conceal. They scream out to the world that you lost your greatest asset - your youth, your looks, your charms -  your competitive edge. You can by no means compete with the new entrants in the market. You are obsolete, useless. You no more serve your purpose - pleasing the eyes. And then ...

You Reflect.

What happened? How did you end up here?

You realize you fed on what was so temporary, so artificial and something you had for no credit of your own. You had intellectual, moral, religious and other charms too. But somehow you ended up spending resources (time, money, etc) on appearance way out of proportion.

And there is a cost you pay in the end. And the cost is your life, your identity.

You were a beauty with brains. You were a beauty with morality. You were a beauty with religion.
Oh girl, your beauty was IN your brains, morality and religion.

Your beauty was not what the fashionistas dictated. Your beauty was not about how you had the perfect hour glass shape in the 70s and the 'twiggy' anorexic body in the 2000s. Your beauty was not about having permed hair in the 80s and sleek rebonded hair early in the second millennium. Beauty was not about changing your wardrobe four times a year with every coming season.

Your beauty was in your head, on your tongue and in your actions.