I know this is as obvious as the nose on your face, but we are a culture obsessed with aging or rather, fixated on reversing the aging process, slowing it down, studying, finding a fountain of youth in the latest and greatest antiaging treatments available. It is a multibillion dollar industry. It is almost as of yore in total denial of the aging process and this is no doubt seated in some deep psychological roots to preside in us. We love the look of the youthful innocence and we cherish the times when life was less involved, less complicated, less demanding. We seek anti-aging treatment, justified in our need to erase the life-battle scars we might otherwise be proud to show off, were white teeth, shiny hair, and perky this or tight that not so sanctified.
It is almost sadly place such value and in and deny these well-deserved and hardfought battle scars that we have accumulated through life. In another respect, it is fair to acknowledge that, as my septuagenarian friend says, as we age we "fall apart". Our eyes need constant updating, our hips and other joints need replacing, our organs weaken and wear. We break down, pure and simple. Even and especially, the largest and most visible of all the human organs, the skin, turns on us, hardens, wrinkles and cracks exposing to others that which we have lived for decades.
It dries and cracks and mars, revealing the effects of what is known as "free radical damage." Evidently, as we age, our skin exfoliates less often; sebum production slows; and therefore less oil flushes the skin...thereby drying it. There's been quite a bit of study about free radicals over the last few decades and scientists that are studying it are beginning to get a pretty good handle on exactly what they are and what they do. It is a flattening of skin layers occurs, subsequently causing thinner skin. Collagen stabilizing enzymes decrease. Blood vessels thin out, preventing the usual blood flow. Anti-aging treatment becomes a mighty fine looking option.
Now science and economics takes over and sets the stage for Botox, elastin enhancers, and scores of shelves of anti-aging treatments that might appear to be the panacea. Plump those lips, raise that brow, flatten that paunch. The splaying of nose bones--a natural phenomena in the aging process--got you feeling less than ideal? Cosmetic reconstruction. ED (erectile dysfunction) reminding you high school football stud years are now nothing more than pages in a yearbook? Go for the infamous or most touted ED drug. We now you can see instances of gradeschool children having plastic surgery to correct whatever flaws that they are perceived to have.
But despite all our anti-aging treatment and fixation (not because of it), we continue to age...but more slowly! Yes, longevity statistics show that people as a whole are living years longer. Again, this is not necessarily due to minor or occasional anti-aging treatments, but more likely to evolution, preservatives, and poisons, as well as healthier living that includes eating well, exercising often, and resting enough. Romeo and Juliet, for example, were they alive (and real) today, would not be worrying about marriage at fifteen (which was not the source of the tragedy, anyway) but at twenty-five or thirty. I just saw a study today when the average male now gets mad at the age of 27, whereas in 1950 that age was 22. There's no question we are living longer and that's only going to further the feed into our quest to fight aging.
So regardless of, in spite of, or maybe with the help of SOME anti-aging treatments, attempts, and so-called cures, those of us eligible for anti-aging treatment are in our mid- to later years...when we do care about staying alive and living a quality life but we care less about what others have to say about how we should live our lives and how we should be. Spirituality and new age attitudes are becoming more prevalent. We care less about material gain or other external, superficial forms of nurturing and are just beginning to invest in our holistic health. We are coming into understanding peace, prayer, serenity, solitude. We know which anti-aging treatments might help and which are tools of denial. We know anti-aging treatment plans (outside of healthy, natural efforts) do not defeat aging or death. They just contribute to drawing out, prolonging, or holding it at bay a bit longer. And I guess all and all it's not a bad thing to feel a little bit better about ourselves.
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