I Rant, You Read: Post-Perfect

Sometimes I wonder when I first realized that perfection wasn't everything (or even fully attainable).  I think it may have been during my first year in college when issues and problems starting getting the inkling of becoming 'real'.  I realized that circumstances were more serious than getting to first period on time or getting to the skate park on time after eighth period.  It got heavy when I began to discover that things didn't always have a happy ending or go my way and that effort X efficiency X timing X perfection was a kind of fuzzy equation for almost perfection.

I spy popular culture and see the infatuation with perfection from all the retouching to the botox and assorted fillers and the endless ways to look young, a somewhat understood benchmark for perfection as far as visual beauty is concerned.  Symmetry, firmness, vibrant color and resiliency is somewhat attractive but at what point does one move beyond the smoke & mirrors to realize that the striving for perfection is actually a mental imperfection.  I say let things occasionally go askew, fall away, fade, age and weather since that's life.  If we the public know that a face photo has been retouched to within two inches of its life or a starlet has gotten more collagen in her face than the law allows or that that hot thirty-something actor has painted on abs, is it more important to see the imposed perfection rather than see the realness of life.  If we see the supposed perfection does it take away our understanding of the actual.  I can only imagine how grey those bottle blond starlets and perfectly coifed hunks must really be by trying to keep up with looking like their cover photos in person.

I say maybe, just maybe, try to eat better, move better, live better and preserve the years of the simulated perfection so that the post-perfection years would seem more like the great flavor following the opening of the 'perfect' bottle of wine.  Of course there is a joy to the statement "get it while you're young".  However,  I think there's more kudos if you live well by living right and can look like you're still tip-toeing around the wonder years after said years have ended without all the fluff and folding.  Does my profession and my recently joining the gym have anything to do with my rant....perhaps.  But I'd like to think that I want to catch up to my best me before I try to strive for perfection.