Aging
Elements of the medical establishment have been doing a great disservice to the human condition. The widespread application of plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons has elevated the misconception that aging is weakness and failure to the status of valid prejudice. The popularity of the television series, Nip/Tuck, speaks to this dehumanizing trend. This is just one symptom of a very big problem.
This age-apartheid is fostered by corporate advertisers. In the eyes of these society-shapers, the ticket to staying engaged in life is to dye your hair, surgically alter your body and take growth hormones. For those who fail this gauntlet of consumerism, there is always the motorized wheelchair, redesigned to look more like a child's motor scooter. The medical establishment enables obesity and profits greatly from attending to its side effects, which are guaranteed in old age.
The saddest effects of all of this are on the young. They are being conditioned from an early age to dread their own natural physical development. A self-fulfilling phophecy of misery and self-mutilation is likely to be their fate. And, in a society where the medical-industrial complex is determined to keep them alive well over 100 years, this is indeed a recipe for Hell on Earth.
I see acceptance of the natural body and its development as an essential part of humanism. By gaining acceptance of and taking responsibility for my own body's health and normal development, I develop understanding and self-acceptance, which then form a basis for midfulness and compassion in the world. Aging is part of the human condition. Death is inevitable. Bringing this awareness into daily life deepens any practice of self-development for the greater good.
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| Google Image: Joan Rivers |
The fear of aging in America reveals the justified insecurity of growing old in a country with a poor social support network. Elderly people in America are neither generally valued nor happily cared for directly by their own families. The elders themselves have been conditioned to be averse to the concept of living in an intergenerational environment. The focus of most "senior" services is to herd old people together in insulated activities and venues. There is no solid intergenerational culture in America.
This age-apartheid is fostered by corporate advertisers. In the eyes of these society-shapers, the ticket to staying engaged in life is to dye your hair, surgically alter your body and take growth hormones. For those who fail this gauntlet of consumerism, there is always the motorized wheelchair, redesigned to look more like a child's motor scooter. The medical establishment enables obesity and profits greatly from attending to its side effects, which are guaranteed in old age.
The saddest effects of all of this are on the young. They are being conditioned from an early age to dread their own natural physical development. A self-fulfilling phophecy of misery and self-mutilation is likely to be their fate. And, in a society where the medical-industrial complex is determined to keep them alive well over 100 years, this is indeed a recipe for Hell on Earth.
I see acceptance of the natural body and its development as an essential part of humanism. By gaining acceptance of and taking responsibility for my own body's health and normal development, I develop understanding and self-acceptance, which then form a basis for midfulness and compassion in the world. Aging is part of the human condition. Death is inevitable. Bringing this awareness into daily life deepens any practice of self-development for the greater good.
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