Friday, December 27, 2013

Insecurities

In today's world, we are highly influenced by the media. I don't watch television much any longer, and have not owned one for over 5 years now. I actually kind of forget that it exists. I am still subjected to advertising, billboards, internet, etc. it surrounds all of us today. Growing up in small towns of Colorado, I wasn't quite as aware of the power that the media held over my personal opinions of life and even my own body image.

Coming out to Los Angeles, and seeing the way that television and movies work life suddenly looks a lot clearer than I had previously known it to be. Something in particular I realized is we are a society the bases self worth completely on fear and competition. Now what I mean in particular with this statement is this, the damned girls that play teenagers in movies are almost in their twenties or are already in their early twenties. So all this time I would envy these movie stars wondering why I didn't look like them as a small scrawny teen was a matter of illusion. Me at 16 didn't look like them, because they weren't 16, they were 20-23. That is a lot of growth and development to take place in those few years. That being said the physical stipulations put on people in today's world are actually quite disgusting. 

Now let me take some time to differentiate what I mean by being shallow about someone's looks. It is not shallow to desire having a partner you find to be attractive. In order to have a romantic relationship one must feel a physical attraction towards their partner or it is just a friendship. A friendship is upgraded to relationship status when their is physical chemistry. So obviously there is nothing wrong with having physical attraction towards people you will seek out in life to be with. The shallowness comes from solely seeking out physical attributes, which I put in the same category as seeking out money in a relationship. 

In life we all go through the darker sides of the spectrum and feel feelings like anger, jealousy, envy, resentment. These feelings, as everyone can agree, make you feel nasty inside. No person ever said feeling jealous made them feel like they were beaming with happiness. These are all a fear based reaction to personal insecurities or unhappiness.

The competitive nature of humans is not something to be ashamed of, this competitiveness exists throughout all species. This is fundamentally where survival of the fittest comes into play. The strongest, and healthy specimens are the ones that will survive, and procreate. In humans this is not necessarily the case any longer as we have such things as doctors that save lives and stuff. In any case, my point is that competition ensures survival. However we have such a false sense of what defines one's self worth, such as beauty, or having pretty shiny things, or just more things, or having bigger boobs, or lips, or smaller waists to the point people put their actual health at risk, or bigger biceps so people start injecting themselves with more growth hormones. All of this, just to keep up with the competition. And why is this we ask ourselves? Is it because our neighbors have amazing perfect bodies? Probably not. They probably all have hidden stretch marks, or are missing a testicle, or their faces are oily, or their butt sags a little. For the general public, perfection does not really exist. The problem is we are all being shown in the media that perfection exists. Honestly, have you seen most of the models in person that you are wishing you looked like? Probably not. So we strive for something that is not real. We are in an ongoing competition with a fantasy.

This is extremely dangerous to the fundamental happiness of humanity. This leads to envy of your neighbor's new tiny sculpted nose. Unbeknownst to us, they now think that their eye slant doesn't match their nose, and their lips need to fill up a little bit in order to accommodate the proportion of their facial features. Your car will never be good enough, if your neighbor's car is newer. Or their Xmas tree is shinier. This type of competition is in place at a false sense of satisfaction. This cycle never ends.



Now don't get me wrong, I love shiny pink things being displayed on a perfectly bodied beautiful woman as much as the next. But remember that their looks don't define their worth as a person. To find contentment with oneself, you have to seek a calm within yourself. Don't envy others for what you do not have. Remember this is all an illusion. Just like my 16 year old self, wondering why I didn't look like the girls in the movies, and for that matter, why didn't all the girls in my school look like them yet? Because that reality just doesn't exist. People lose sight of fantasy and try to make that their reality. And that makes as much sense as believing that a talking unicorn will come to you in the middle of the night and fly in the clouds with you under the moonlight. 

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