On beauty and aging

Moles and real estate have something in common: it’s all about location, location, location. Take that mole that was so unfortunate as to have been born on the wrong side of the tracks, residing on the wicked witch of the west’s nose; move it to the upscale neighbourhood of Marilyn Monroe’s cheek and it becomes a beauty spot. And just like in real estate, timing is key. If Marilyn had stayed on the market her beauty spot would have decreased in value, eventually reverting to a mole. Regardless of the descriptions we start out with - elegant tudor, sprawling estate, modest bungalow - we're all doomed to end up as fixer-uppers.

There’s a book that attempts to deal with modern-day problems from a Buddhist perspective, responding to questions like “What would the Buddha have done if he had noisy neighbours?” and “What would the Buddha have done if mice were destroying the wiring in his house?” I wonder what the Buddha would have done if he looked in the mirror one day and saw a wrinkled face staring back at him. Maybe he never had to deal with this issue, since he took refuge from the sun under a bodhi tree and remained supremely equanimous. Even if he did develop laugh lines and a furrowed brow, it probably only made him appear more rugged, like a Marlboro Buddha. I imagine his heavy meditation schedule meant he was sleep-deprived, so maybe he had to deal with dark circles under his eyes. Maybe he didn’t have a mirror. Maybe every day is a bad hair day in the land of the boddhisattvas.

I hope I can be a conscious objector in the war against aging. I don’t want to return to the battles of WWI, lobbing poison into the trenches of the enemy. Let’s all sing a lullaby to the axis of evil. Nature should be the envy of the United Nations in resolving this conflict peacefully: I age, and your vision fails.