World Weary

You know it seems like nothing helps. Nothing of this world cures all the maladies of life in this world. The old song says, "This world is not my home," and it surely is not. Earth is a beautiful place and there are beautiful things and beautiful people in it, but the truth is there are a lot more people who are at home in this world than feel that this world is not their home. Evidence of this is how much money people spend trying to be young when they're getting old. For example, movie stars. You would think they would have the world in the palm of their hand, or the world is their oyster, that they would be happy with what they have accomplished or how successful they are, but it seems like an awful lot of them spend thousands of dollars on cosmetic surgery, for example, that does not make them look any better, or does so for a while, but not for long. Most of the beautiful young faces that have been botched by plastic surgery end up looking unrecognizable at best and hideous at worst. Eyes stretched open, lips puffed up, skin drawn and haggard, no matter how many facelifts they get. I'm sure maybe one facelift might help at first. If you pull your hair up into a ponytail, you'll notice it makes you look better. That's about as much help as a facelift, and then to see how the skin responds as the years go by, I'd conclude that it was not worth the money if that's all it did. And all the ladies 60 and older that want to pretend they're still 20-somethings, it's kind of embarrassing, in a way. I will not mention names, but you and I have both seen the aging rock stars trying to be in their 20s again, and they're just not. The aging male rock stars, of course, go after the women young enough to be their granddaughters. In a word, it seems the world has gone crazy, and, in fact, is it possible it was already crazy and we're just catching on to that? I tend to lean in that direction. It's all about appearance for those famous individuals. Their entire careers are built as much on their looks as upon their abilities. Just my opinion, but there are many celebrities who have aged gracefully and no one condemns them for it, in fact, I admire them. They appear to have gained some wisdom along the way. I doubt very much that anything I would write or say would have any impact on any of these famous celebrities, but you don't have to be a movie star to be obsessed with appearance. I suppose we all have a certain amount of that. We want to look a certain way and we work on that. It's only natural, and we want to look presentable, I think, most of us, right? Nothing wrong with that. I just think we've entered into an age where people have lost their sense of reality. You can't change your age any more than you can change your gender, but a lot of people think you can accomplish the latter, and I suppose they're the same ones who think age is "just a number." Age is not just a number, it's a reality. You age and you change. I can do a lot of the things I could do when I was younger, but there are some things I used to do that I can't do any more. For example, I don't jump any more. I used to jump as recently as, say, 10 years ago, but not anymore. I didn't used to mind jumping, but now, it just feels weird. I work with kids and can still do a lot of things they do, but jumping is not one of them. I have to modify jumping. Well, I might jump once but I'm not going to do jumping jacks, for example. Just not happening. I can't even tell you exactly why I won't do jumping jacks anymore, it's been a long time since I tried it. I could probably do it, but here's the thing. I shook my head once, like I used to do after washing and towel-drying my hair, and I got so dizzy I thought I would faint dead away. I didn't, but I am not going to try shaking my head again. I guess I kind of got off topic here, sorry. I'm just tired of the pressure the world exerts on individuals to try to stay young when they're not, to buy everything under the sun, donate to every cause in in the world and believe all the advertisers' and politicians' lies. I'm just done with it and that is why I'm going to my small church gathering this evening in a home, which I always did prefer anyway. Anyone who is not part of a body of believers, I hope you will have an opportunity soon because it can make all the difference. It does for me, anyway. Gotta go. Talk later. Talk later.