Are We Losing Our Individuality?

As we were driving through Colorado Springs coming home, son and I were talking about the unique and creative houses there. Instead of the cookie cutter, all look-alike blocks we see today in subdivisions, these houses were all built as an expression of the original builders. I love seeing all the beautiful homes with all the gingerbread and other designs on them. Each house stands out alone as something special.

Look at these houses with all their architectural differences. Even the buildings like churches or office buildings have this unique flair and style.

To me, all of this wonderful architectural work done on buildings was an art form and now, we go for buildings that are all cut from the same cloth, square and nondescript.  Where is the artistry anymore?

And yet, I see us doing this with our own selves today. Look at the people who have Botox, which literally causes you to have no expression on your face and young people the age of 18 and up are having this done way before wrinkle time. And what does it do? It gives us all these faces with similar expressions on them, no uniqueness or personality.

Add to that, if you look at the news, the women are almost all the same with the new announcers….long hair, Botox faces and puffed lips and they look like someone produced them on an assembly line. The next time you are flipping through the news channels and talk shows, really take a look some time.

It is sad to me for it means that we have lost our uniqueness. Women and men now are so afraid of wrinkles or looking their age. I won’t say looking old…just looking their age. Sorry folks, but you could not pay me to go back to when I was twenty and go through that all over again. I love the person I am.

Yes, I have wrinkles. I have crows feet around my eyes, but you know what. They show I laugh a lot and laughed a lot in life. I have lines around my mouth from grinning so much. I have the creases between my brows that show the pain I have lived with. And I have forehead wrinkles that show I used my brain and I thought and worried. All those show that I LIVED.  I don’t want puffy lips that look like someone blew them up or fish lips or someone punched me in the mouth. I don’t want a face that is devoid of any expression because I do not fear getting older.

It is always funny to me to hear thirty is the new twenty or better yet fifty is the new thirty. Hate to tell folks, no matter what number you put on it, you are still the age you are. You can hide the wrinkles and the bald spots and lift the boobs or tuck the tummy, but you are still the age you are and somewhere unless you do every inch of your body, will show it. Whether it is your hands, your feet, you ears, your elbows. It will show.

I am 62 and proud of every year I am.I don’t want to walk around looking like one of those mannequins in the window with no real expression. I want to be me and I want the world to see my face and know that I laughed, I cried, I got angry, I hurt, and I felt extreme joy….I lived.  I am not talking about people who have what they call “refresher” work done on their face. I am talking the constant and extreme obsession with trying to look twenty when you are fifty or sixty and having constant Botox injections and face lifts. I often wonder if those that do that realize people look at them and go…’who do they think they are fooling?’

Are we becoming cookie cutter people? ……people with no individuality…..cloned people who all wear the same hairdo and have the same nondescript faces?  No wonder criminals seem to get away with things. How can you identify them if everyone looks the same?  Is this just an American obsession? Maybe that is why I love the buildings out here. They have not all had cosmetic surgery to make them all look-alike. And many of the people have not either.   My dream is for people to be happy with themselves. To take care of themselves and stay in shape and try to look their best but not be cookie cutter people in looks, actions or thoughts.

The world if full of beauty. All we have to do is take the time to look. And while you are looking, look into the eyes of people and see the real beauty….not the cookie cutter molded beauty.

video by amethyst2001

Every day, someone says the words “I love you” and I don’t think what they are loving is the cosmetic cookie cutter person but the beauty that radiates from the inside out and makes every wrinkle, every gray hair, every flaw….beautiful.

video by Jozy90

I love this song. Makes me think of a saying I have…I love you warts and all. I think when we truly love, we don’t see the things that people see as flaws. We see the beauty.

video by eddiejvb