klaus
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Apr 8, 2010, 9:36 AM
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By Klaus Rohrich
One of the great truths in life is that the only way one can escape getting old is to die young. All of us undergo a series of physical changes as we age, some of which are visibly apparent and other not so much. There’s the graying, thinning hair, the wrinkles, the sagging body parts and, of course, the “middle age spread”.
Many older people are now deciding to fight back with the assistance of their friendly neighborhood cosmetic surgeon. And while some cosmetic surgery, that small nip or tuck, tends to improve one’s overall appearance, too many people are clearly overdoing it.
When we think of some of our all time favorite public personalities they tend to be divided into two camps, the Andy Rooney camp and the Joan Rivers Camp. Rooney, whom I’ve watched for close to 40 years, has allowed himself to age the way nature intended and at age 90 one can see every second of those years imprinted in the wrinkles on his face. He sort of looks like a tired Shar Pei dog. Rivers, on the other hand, appears to have had so much cosmetic surgery that her face looks like it’s held together with Saran Wrap. Some of her “enhancements” have even made her look like she’s been rendered by a comic book artist.
It’s hard to understand what motivates individuals to seek out such drastic cosmetic “enhancements”, considering that often the result is so jarring. One wonders how anyone in their right mind would spend good money to look like a bad version of themselves.
I fall firmly in the Rooney camp, as I believe that aging naturally allows for one’s character to shine through, even if that character has to work its way through a mile of wrinkles. And frankly, I think Rooney is proud that his face looks like he’s 90 years old. When people age naturally, there’s a certain beauty that no amount of cosmetic surgery can capture. I much prefer Margaret Thatcher to Donatella Versace or Cher. I think there is something beautiful and powerful about Margaret Thatcher’s wrinkled brow and sagging chin. On the other hand, there’s something eerily macabre in Versace’s “Joker” smile or in Cher’s total lack of expression.
What caused me to think on this vein was the appearance last week of Buzz Aldrin (of moon walk fame) on the popular TV show “Dancing with the Stars”. Aldrin looks like he’s been botoxed so much that his face has turned into a grimace incapable of showing feeling. What’s worse, his poor wife, Lois, has had so much work done on her face that she looks like an undertaker had applied her make-up.
When the poet Dylan Thomas wrote “Old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light.” I somehow don’t think he meant that age could be defeated by Botox or the surgeon’s scalpel. I think the poem’s purpose is to remind people how important it is to savor every moment of one’s life and to live without regrets.
Klaus Rohrich is President and Creative Director of Taylor/Rohrich Associates Inc., a marketing and advertising firm that specializes in niche marketing retirement real estate developments
http://www.maturitymarketing.com.
(This post was edited by klaus on Apr 29, 2010, 8:27 AM)
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