I had an interesting chat today with one of my clients. We were talking about cosmetic surgery, of how when a woman, or, increasingly, man, goes under the knife, the result is almost never that of someone looking suddenly like a twenty-five year old even though they are over sixty. Rather, they look like a person over sixty who has had cosmetic surgery. I have often wondered about the whole subject around cosmetic surgery. Certainly it is great if you have been severely disfigured in an accident, or were born disfigured that there is that kind of recourse, given the fear and ignorance in so many people when it comes to how anyone is often treated even if they look just a little bit different. Then there are those minor cosmetic adjustments. For example, I remember a kid in school getting his ears done. They were not Dumbo or Martian ears, I will have you know, but they did stick out just a little. And I do not recall even once hearing anyone taunt this boy about his funny ears. But, when he was around twelve or so, he got his ears fixed. There was some dumb alibi about problems with the cartilage. Well and good, and the result did look rather nice. But, whatever for, anyway? He was not particularly popular, by the way, nor unpopular. We did kind of end up for a few months in the same loosely formed clique, but I cannot recall anyone suddenly giving him flowers and candy just because he happened to have ears now that were a little more ordinary.
I do know of two women, sisters, who both had their breasts reduced, but that was from the extra weight they had to carry and it was making their backs hurt. I remember their priest, giggling like a schoolboy when he told me about going over to see them to give them both a blessing before they went into surgery for their boob job.
And then there are noses. Except for Barbra Streisand, one of America's most famous, glamourous and wealthy entertainers. She is proud of her nose, and rightly so.
How about Dolly Parton, whose wax museum double looks almost as real as her? And ditto for Madonna. And then there was Joan Rivers and we won't even mention Captain Kirk, the space traveller also known as William Shatner. How much have they paid in order to look two or three decades younger, even if their real success is coming off as geezers with flawlessly tight faces, bums, and well.....
So, a lot of people don't want to get old, and they especially don't want to look like they're getting old , and almost everyone is terrified of ageing and death, no matter how ridiculous they end up looking and how many hundreds of thousands, how many millions of dollars get wasted. Of course one is going to think how many hungry children could get properly fed, how many homeless could get housing on that money instead. But with the exception of those who really need the surgery,such as the sisters with the painfully large boobs, I cannot think of anyone else going under the scalpel having motives more noble than getting easily laid by attractive younger partners, or maintaining the adoration of their chronically stupid fans, or simply propping up their very fragile self-esteem on strategically added silicon and botox. Yes, people like that are often well-moneyed, some richer than Croesus, They can afford it. And it's their money.
But except for movie stars running foundations for the empowerment of refugee women, or the humane treatment of orphan puppies, or pick any one otherwise noble cause, it doesn't require a lot of cynicism for someone to imagine that their charitable endeavours are at least partly vehicles for their own self-promotion, and any amount of money that could be used wisely and generously in order to improve the quality of other people's lives are simply going to the bank accounts of their cosmetic surgeons, and granny and grandpa's payoff is they get to totter off looking like mannequins or wax dummies, but not one single year younger or more beautiful, nor any less vulnerable to all the ailments of old age.
We love ourselves or we love others. We only get it both ways when we put others ahead of ourselves. But within reason of course, and it is going to be up to each one of us to set our own boundaries in these matters. But if we really start reaching out in love to others, even when we feel we have nothing to give, the love does come to birth, and we don't end up wasting valuable resources on making ourselves ridiculous on any level as a tradeoff for our runaway vanity and fear of mortality. That is the only kind of self love that I believe to be truly acceptable, which is the fruit of selflessness.
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