Youth. What comes to mind when you read that word? For me, lately anyway, it's conjured up images of the weird ass stuff people will do to try and look young these days. I remember when Botox first came out and it was this miracle thing that was gonna take away everybody's wrinkles for good. But injecting poison into one's face is apparently not good enough anymore cuz there have since been a thousand other things that have popped up as the next big thing in looking younger. What I don't get is what the obsession is. Does getting older suck? Heck yes it does. But it's kinda part of the deal you made when you entered the world. Everything ends eventually, including your life. I can't see how anyone is helped by your dead self looking ten years younger than you actually were.
I don't know why all this youth-obsessed stuff bothers me so much. I don't really have a dog in this fight since my family has pretty darn good genetics (I swear some of them must be pod people, they've looked exactly the same for 20 years). But I think it's just impossible to not buy into it a little bit given the society we live in now. Everything is so focused on looks and everybody wants to look as young as possible. Back in my early 20's when I was dating mostly (okay, only) older women I can't remember ever having a conversation with any of them about how they looked for their age. I don't know if the youth thing just wasn't as a big a deal then or if I just didn't care but I know my interest in them would've likely gone down if they'd had any work done. I think the majority of the time people come out looking freaky, even from the smallest nips and tucks. But the youth-obsession doesn't seem to show any signs of slowing down, business is gonna keep booming so long as people are insecure about their looks.
I'm not saying you should just age and not do anything about it and then die. But I think a large part of this obsession is rooted in how people treated themselves when they were young. You drink too much, you smoke like a train, you don't wear sunscreen, you don't work out and then you're somehow shocked when you look ten years older than you are at age 40. So you look for some kinda fix and you're so desperate that you'll try any weird thing a doctor tells you might help. It's such a sick cycle. I got lucky in that my mom was very diligent about slapping sunscreen on us (which we hated at the time but are now all kindsa thankful for) and preaching to us about taking care of ourselves while we're young cuz the body is gonna turn on us eventually. I shudder to think what people will be doing in ten years time to try and look older, given some of the bizarre stuff I've already heard about.
