Now, before someone starts turning defensive, let me defensive. This is not an essay about why I categorically oppose cosmetic surgery. I as supportive as the next gal if some one feels so bad about her neck as she does not leave home, or if another is so heavy-lidded that he misses half image every time he blinks. Plastic surgeons have done wondrous things.
As regards dissemination of minor cosmetic procedures? Those that your dentist is offering to do while he is in the vicinity of the mouth? Injections of fillers to plump up lips, smooth wrinkles, pad out laughter lines? At this point, it is a wonder that salesclerk at Barneys does not offer to postpone your face while you are trying on hats.
I am again, not against it. Well, maybe Botox. I am calling for a RANT when my friends come to the brink of the matches to the PIN. I mean, who wants to inject a poison so deadly that it paralyzes nerves, sending small muscles to atrophy?
I'm not categorically opposed to a helping hand, so long as it has finesse. My current rule of thumb, when confronted with an improved face, is that if I am vaguely wondering whether there was work, change was well done. But these days, I wonder why – why did you?
We have gone too far. I am very, very afraid.
We have reached a stage where cosmetic surgery is so easily accessible to in some circles it is expected of men and women to make use of these age-deny. (You cannot call them youth-sticker when you are no longer young.) If you choose not to take advantage of the benefits of needle-knife, is deemed to be to make a statement. You take a stand against the current standards of beauty.
We have triggered a strange, collective, late onset of body dysmorphia. What is worse is that our fears on ageing have floated into our children's generation, so that the mantra about cosmetic procedures including among some 30-year-olds are "intervention early and often."
I began to worry about all this a year ago when I was on a book tour. I love reading aloud and watching people's faces as they listen. Within weeks, I was deeply in touch with my inner ham. Sometimes, I found myself Sila for a response. I would look at the audience, hear laughter and heckling, but sees only stern masks. Even afterwards, would these same faces says how much they had loved my presentation. It took a while to realise that people had trouble expressing emotions in its functions.
This is also when I started developing problem "who are you?".
Too many people have had procedures that have gone wrong. They look strange and tragic. Is it inevitable? You do one thing, the impact is beginning to fade, you make another, and so on. You get puffy. You get numb. Or you picture. And I wonder. Has no one said "stop"? Has no one, especially the chopped needle, carefully advised against further work? It used to be a rare sight site cosmetic surgery addict, but there has been surprisingly common.
We are now in position to watch politicians and newscasters talking about worrying questions — like, say, our education system, or environmental degradation – but they cannot muster signal of concern and less dismayed.
An evening catch in a segment on TV about nuclear disarmament. A celebrity spokesperson makes a case for fixing the amount of weapons, and part of my brain clicked gear: she is smart and passionate. But another part of me is distracted, because Visual does not match the message. Her forehead is not crimp with concern. her Cheeks is no crinkling with smiles, her eyes does not reduce the suspicion of trick questions. No matter what she says, actually her face frozen in place. It is grotesque fascinating — and that, before I know it, is the interview above. Medium lost message.
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