Ageing

[poliphilo]

I don't think one should fight the ageing process- at least not the way some people do, with creams and surgery and all that.

There's no dignity in the look the aged-but-surgically-interfered-with have-  that tight and shiny look.

Michael Douglas for instance. 

Maybe one of these days they'll perfect the techniques and people of seventy really will look like people of twenty, but as things stand those spruced-up oldsters just look weird.

Like they're wearing prosthetics or something. Not quite real, not quite human.

Wrinkles can be beautiful. 

Actually, I think there's a moral dimension to it. People who've lived a horrible life end up as ugly old people and people who've lived good lives end up as beautiful old people. 

What they told us when we were kids about not frowning because the wind might blow on us and we'd get fixed that way comes true in the end. 

Of course one should fight against mental torpor. That's the real ugliness. The carping, grouchy, closed-up attitude some old people get stuck with gives old age a bad name.

I watch myself ageing. Inside and out. My body changing, my attitudes changing. 

I accept it as part of the deal.

I find it interesting.

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I so agree about the surgical attempt at reversing the effects of time. My own face aches when I see how taut surgery pulls the skin. I´m always thinking those faces will break open at the slightest change in expression.

Beautiful post. Mental torpor is indeed the real enemy.

Thanks for this!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love the icon.

I was much less happy at 20 than I am now.