Plastic surgery. When’s the last time you saw a celebrity without it? Hard to recall, right? That’s because despite all the abundant health risks nobody likes to talk about–super fun stuff like blood clotting, nerve damage, granulomas, and more, all courtesy of your local aesthetician–plastic surgery just keeps rising in popularity. But why? Why is our society so obsessed with escaping aging?
After some very careful research–i.e. sitting in my room and thinking on the topic for a while–I think our main perpetrator is a societal fear of death. Yes, everybody wants to be young and beautiful forever. But let’s be honest, most augmentations nowadays look plastic, fake, and downright uncanny in many cases. Not exactly the fresh-faced appearance most are going for.
So, if most plastic surgery looks outlandish and overdone, why are people still so willing–eager, even–to go under the knife?
It’s because nobody wants to see evidence of aging when they look in the mirror. That nagging reminder that this, life, won’t last forever. If you look young, you can convince yourself that time isn’t moving just as fast as it was before your face lift.
Except it is. Sorry to burst any bubbles, but time doesn’t care how big your lips are. It’s coming for us all, steady as ever, just the same. So fine, get some filler here, a lift there, tuck that and liposuction all your worries away. But it still won’t last forever. We are all aging, every second of every day. As you read these words, you’re aging, and as I write them I am too. And yes, one day, we’ll stop. Not because of a nose job or a tummy tuck, but because we will have reached the end of our lifespan. And everybody, filled to the brim with botox or not, will return to the dirt.
Only difference is you and I will decompose a whole lot better than a Kardashian. Look at us, saving the planet!
Now, I’m not writing this to scare you. It’s part of the human experience, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with aging, or dying. It’s all natural, unlike Kim’s-
You know what, nevermind.
What I’m trying to say is, we live in a society that avoids the topic of aging as much as possible, and plastic surgery is the most commonly manipulated method. We want so desperately to look as if we have not lived, we’ve forgotten the value in it.
With all these augmentations, we’ve afflicted ourselves with a condition far worse than any aforementioned side effects. We’ve lost our ability to appreciate human beauty in all its forms, opting to only value that which fits into a cookie cutter model of what’s been deemed “attractive.” Rather than appreciating our own unique appearance, people–especially women–are being pushed to erase that which makes them definable, and alter themselves until they fit what society sees as “beautiful.”
Even though I began this article talking about celebrities, they aren’t the only ones indulging in this unwinnable game. Far from it, actually. And I’d know, living in sunny Southern California, not a day goes by that I leave my house and I don’t see somebody with extreme augmentations done.
When this happens, guess what I never think to myself? “How beautiful. God, if I could just look like that.” At first I never thought much of it when I saw this, but now, it just fills me with disappointment. Disappointment in society, for making people feel like they can’t possibly be attractive if they don’t drastically alter their appearance. Disappointment that we’re all so willing to give in, to let our decisions be dictated by the ever changing beauty standards of today.
The funniest part is, in a few years time, all of this will be obsolete. And I don’t just mean because plastic surgery doesn’t prevent aging, we’ve been over that. What I mean is, the standard will change. Rise in any given direction, and undoubtedly become more impossible to achieve. Just take a look at ancient sculptures of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, and see how drastically out of line she is with today’s standards.
And so, what are our insecurities, the ones that we’re so desperate to erase, worth? What meaning do they have when next month, people might be making appointments with a plastic surgeon to have that exact trait?
None. Absolutely none.
I’m around teenage girls day in and day out, and I hear them all picking themselves to death, pointing out any little flaw that everyone else would need a microscope to detect. I do the same, bothered by a mere blemish, sucking in constantly just to hide that I do in fact have internal organs. All these insecurities, mine included, are ridiculous.
Nobody in their right mind looks at the gorgeous girls I see around me and thinks, “Look at her massive forehead”, or “Oh my God, look at her stomach. She’s so bloated.”
Because no, you could not “house a small village” on your forehead (Yes, I have heard a girl say this. Rest assured, her forehead is normal. Big shock.). No, you do not look three months pregnant (I’ve also heard a girl say this, and yes, that girl was me).
Whatever your insecurity is–and yes, we all have them, not just women–know wholeheartedly, nobody else is looking at it. You are the only one scrutinizing yourself this carefully. You are the one making yourself this miserable, because society has trained us to do just that.
So don’t. Stop comparing yourself to people on screens who have literal teams working to make them as perfect as possible. Kick back, and embrace that every human being on this planet is flawed. That’s fine, that’s natural, and it connects us all.
And that, that’s true beauty. You won’t find it in a syringe or an implant. If you just look at real, raw people. Those who aren’t afraid to bear the evidence of a life well lived, even if it takes the form of wrinkles or other so-called “unpleasantries.” That’s where you’ll find real beauty.
