“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
 - Soren Kierkegaard

I really have to get back to crossposting and twittering, I have been in deep recovery from the trip and then got absolutely slammed with my end of the month bread and butter. But, to my shock and surprise and according to a logic that obviously I do not participate in, the Mad Kitten has emerged from her room as if there was nothing odd at all about where we are and no memory of the past three days of shaking and hiding. Go figure. She is back to parading all over me like I am some kind of piece of furniture conveniently placed so she may reach things.

Its strange how, even if you know better, there are certain milestones in life that as you pass them you realize that in the eyes of the culture at large - you have become less than. Once you are past 30, you are now old and fat. Or at least, your life needs to be dedicated to the avoidance of being old and fat. And while that may be a relatively simple thing to do physically (eat right and exercise, no matter how you try to avoid it – that is the way it is done) not much is mentioned about what to do to avoid becoming mentally and emotionally “old and fat”. And by that I mean, perceiving oneself as worthless in the eyes of the world for no other reason then your age and appearance.

Growing older is an interesting thing. There are elements of it that are wonderful, but tied to it all is the unavoidable reality that as your body ages it changes. You can (as is highly promoted) seek ways to prolong youth, but what is not acknowledged is that these are nothing more than window dressings. I could have all the plastic surgery in the world that I want so I may appear 30 when I am 60 but it will not change the fact that unlike when I was 30, now that I am 60 I cannot eat green peppers because they give me gas.

The pop culture of youth is so prevalent that even if you live a life devoid of its influence you cannot escape it.

I know people who spend more time and money investing in things that promise to at least delay aging that they miss any chance of growing into their age. Where one chooses to put one’s focus in developing oneself shows more and more the older one gets. The sheer ignorance of aging is astounding to me. The black and white of either “youth is everything” or “purple hats” is pretty much the spectrum we are allowed in western culture.

But aging is such a complicated process.

I also know people that having spent all that time and money trying to avoid aging inevitably reach the point in which the fact that they have aged slams up against them and the emotional devastation is just heartbreaking to watch. Heartbreaking and yet, you want to smack ‘em on the side of the head and go “whats a matta with you? What the hell did you think was going on?”
On the flip side, I know people who age before their time. Where at 35 they embrace that they are no longer part of the youth culture and they begin to shuffle, by 40 they begin to define their lives by what they perceive they cannot do.

And in all of this, defining all of this, the expression of all of this – is our bodies. Our reflections of ourselves and also our ability to see and be seen by others on a purely physical level.

And the strange thing is, for something so very real and very unavoidable, I think there are very few people who are capable of perceiving their bodies or others in their reality. Our vision is distorted by our desires and fears and cultural/social expectations. We see immensely fat thighs were there is muscle, pendulous stomachs where there is just a little late day bloating, faces brutalized by outbreak when there is a little zit the size of a pin. Worse still, we cannot even see another person. We deem people fat who are at the right bodyweight, old who simply choose not to be trendy and then we assign perceptions of intelligence to them based on appearance. We are unwilling to explore the potential of emotional bonds with people we do not deem attractive (and yet tout our desire to get to know people).

It is amazing how body dysmorphia is so prevalent.

But it is also a kind of age dysmorphia. I think if I hear either “I am 44 years old but I don’t act my age” or “I am 50 years young” I will puke. Why is it so important and such a selling point to try and deny our experience in life. And, as well, it is truly revelatory at how we treat (and are trained) to treat ourselves as commodities. Our worth is defined only by our eventual acceptance by another, and if we are in a projecting mode, we will provide the devastation of rejection of crowds in the privacy of our own rooms and literally destroy our self esteem before we even open the door.

There is nothing in our modern culture that teaches us how to age and how to accept our bodies. Everything is in extremes. Either we are told to absolutely accept our bodies and in accepting them chose to become ignorant and unmindful of our bodies (by thinking their condition unimportant); or, that we must pursue an unrealistic ideal promoted by images of bodies that are computer generated and unattainable; or we take a reactive stance to the culture of youth by declaring being overweight perfectly fine and choosing to ignore how dangerous it is to one’s health (in the same way that the culture of youth ignores the harm of being too thin).

Bodies are tools and symbols. Our bodies are all we really have. They are our original houses and homes for everything inside of us. We dress them up, surround them with things in an effort to control and shape ourselves and it will always come back to the body you have holds who you are. And unless you are willing and able to recognize the reality of your body and to treat it as a home, to take care of it, to choose not to slap new paint on it to cover needed repairs – you place yourself at risk of living a fantasy that inevitably will explode in your face, even if only in the final awareness of your mortality that leaves you painfully aware of the things you have chosen not to do that leave your life “undone” and “unfulfilled”.

My mind wanders back to “Daisy of Love” and the equating of physical attraction with emotional connection. Jesus…when are people going to get that the two don’t go hand in hand? If they do…wonderful, but come on….

ok…back to the bread and butter. I woke up this morning and full altitude adjustment has hit me and it is just…too disgusting to describe

New Performance Video!  Requiem for a God what is that little flower? copyright 2000-2009 Cassandra Tribe. All rights reserved. For permission to use any of this material please contact info@loveandwords.com

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