| Subject: Re: Extreme Makeover |
Author:
Leslie
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Date Posted: 10:44:56 06/27/04 Sun
In reply to:
howard
's message, "Extreme Makeover" on 11:14:24 06/26/04 Sat
I totally understand your feelings, I see the same thing. what is interesting is that we don't realize just how powerful the messages society gives us are until we encounter imperfections in ourselves. I am a woman, and as such am subject to the cultural message that women are only valuable if they are young and beautiful. And for twenty years or so, I was young and very attractive, and now I am getting older and having to deal with the loss of youth and beauty, and it IS difficult, even though I am also a very mental-philosophical type person and I KNOW BETTER intellectually. But deep inside, it still is painful to lose your youth, and your beauty.
I am doing the braces mostly because I have an overbite and am slowly losing teeth, it is reconstructive. But the idea that I can get rid of the space between my two front teeth intrigues me, those messages ARE very powerful, arent they?
I find much about the western way of thought disturbing, the segregation of old people, the loss of value as we age, the continual buying and commercialism, it IS sad, and it IS a waste to spend your life trying to achieve some kind of outer perfection. But those messages persist, how do we turn them off? Life entails loss, from your youth and looks to people you love, your children go away, things change. Why is it we deny all that and refuse to pay attention to what is inevitable for each and every one of us?
I don't know the answers, but I feel your sadness.
>I just wached Extreme Makeover and am shocked.
>
>I'm shocked about the extent that people are willing
>to go to to change their apperance and how unhappy
>they must have been during their lives to have to go
>to such extremes. I'm shocked about what Western
>Society has instilled in us; this need to be perfect.
>So is someone without the same perfect, veneer smile
>or beautiful body less worth as a person?
>
>But i was even more shocked about the fact that i
>could really see where these people were coming from
>and had me asking the question why i got braces. I
>know for some of you the reasons are functional, but i
>know that for many of us they are cosmetic. Now how
>are we different to the people on Extreme Makeover. We
>bracefaces and the Extreme Makeover people are both
>unhappy with parts of our apperance, the latter have
>merely set the bar higher and are willing to go to
>greater lenghts to alter their looks.
>
>I have tried to rationalize, to make me believe that i
>am different to the Ex Makeover guys, but i really am
>not. It's just on a smaller scale. This really makes
>me sad, to think that i place so much value on having
>perfect teeth and that that will be a source of self
>confidence for me. Self confidence should come from
>within, the core, the person that you are...not your
>frikken teeth.
>
>Sorry for being so long, i'm just a bit shocked with
>myself. I'm glad i'm getting my teeth done. They will
>be nice and shiny and all, but i think i need to have
>a close look at myself and finally really understand
>that someone's value, my value, does not come from
>being beautiful and having great teeth but from
>something much deeper.
>
>I'm quite sad right now
>
>h
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