My wrinkles. Look at my 11. I like to think they are the sentinels of my thoughts. I have spent a lot of time frowning whilst in deep thought (or just pissed off) to acquire them.
Wherever I go online, I read so many comments on “wellness” and “self-care” that are either a sales pitch in disguise or a justification on why (mostly) women are sacrificing their bodies on the altar of Beauty and Youth. Side note: incredibly enough, on Substack, I have only stumbled upon intelligent women. You can read about the wonderful take by
and here and here. You might be thinking- what is THE Goddess doing on the internet? Well, dear humans, THE Goddess is omnipresent.What worries me about the findings on the matter is not that (mostly) women are still subjecting themselves to painful procedures to capture the ever-elusive mirage of perpetual youth. I know enough human stupidity to understand that they will not only stumble on the same stone twice, but they will actually pave their way with the aforementioned stones just for kicks. What bothers me to no end is that humans have fallen into the trap set by the “no judgment” and “you do you gurrrrrl” trope. Humans repeat the “you do you” and “no judgment” mantra as if it were a chant that could erase the stupidity of the act they are about to perform. If one will succumb to idiocy, one should own it and call it by its name. Look gurrrrl, yes, do what you want with your body, but know that sacrificing your time and money in the name of a beauty and youth that we are all, and I mean ALL, going to lose, is sheer stupidity. And quite possibly what you think you are doing for yourself you are doing, in reality, to fit into a canon of beauty that not even the Vitruvian man in his best days could fit into. So meditate on this.
In any case, I have decided, condescendingly so, to enlighten you (mostly) women out there. Yes, I have come to lay the law of the land when it comes to the limits on the pursuit of Youth and Beauty. We will be following Xanthippe’s principles*:
Will there be NO bleeding/scarring involved?
Is it pain-free?
Is the product price less than 0.01% of your monthly salary?
If the answer to ALL three principles follows the pattern Yes-Yes-Yes, then go ahead; you have my blessing. If not, then we need to elaborate on the terms and conditions. It was going to be a decalogue, but always trust a woman to do in half the time/space whatever a man has attempted to do and largely failed at. Seen anyone following the decalogue to the t? My point exactly.
Thou shalt love thyself below the skin. Gurrrrl, beauty is skin deep; if you are going to do something so shallow, you have to compensate by reading a book whilst at it. Going to the hairdresser to add some colour to cover the totally normal grey hair? take a book. Going to wax hair from where it grows naturally? listen to a podcast by someone smarter than you (I get that reading while waxing is a feat for Titans). You get the gist.
Thou shalt honour who you are becoming. Bow to the old person who is surfacing with every day that passes. Here I feel compelled to add that even Jane Fonda has regretted her plastic surgeries (hear her on the matter here). Furthermore, some people out there seem like they cannot blink without farting at the same time (e.g. the now defunct Silvio Berlusconi^). My darlings, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but unless death comes knocking at your door prematurely, old age is inevitable, and I tell you that surviving this day and age is quite the achievement. So, celebrate the Amazon in you. Take her for a massage once in a while because fighting tirelessly is exhausting.
Thou shalt not do unto you what you would not recommend unto others. Now, here is the key- if a friend of yours says she is contemplating lip fillers, you will most probably say to her, “Are you crazy? No one looks good after that”. Think about it: Have you ever met anyone in real life who looked
sexy,natural,younger, sane after lip fillers? The answer, you will find, is invariably NO. The only people who look OKish with lip fillers are the ones you do NOT know, who have photoshopped their pictures, probably using a “miracle filter”. So do yourself a favour and take note of the cactus-kissing, fish-out-of-the-water faces around you and tattoo those images in your brain. Recall them every time you have the urge to muck about with your lovely mouth (unless you are going to the dentist, oral hygiene is a must!).Thou shalt not spend time altering the aspect of your outer self if you could spend it doing something moderately interesting. I am going to tell you an anecdote here. Before acquiring Goddess status, I went regularly to the hairdresser to cover the sprouting grey hair. “Heathen!” you will scream, and rightly so. But then I did some math and added up the amount of time I had left on Earth (in minutes and on average, very humbling mathematical experience that I recommend to all of you) and the amount of time I spent, on average, covering the hair that is just going to keep on coming. I looked at the ratio and immediately felt nauseous. I stopped the tincture nonsense right there. Because, my dear earthlings, I hate to be (yet again) the bearer of bad news, but, much like the hairs on your head, your days are counted. Choose wisely how you spend them.
Thou shalt compensate for all over the top expenditures. If you are one of the blessed few who get the appropriate wages after a hard day’s work, pat yourself on the back. You might notice that answering YES to principle number three is relatively easy for you. BUT! if this amount is above 100€** then you need to pay back Karma. Since you have decided to forgo using your brain (snail snot does not work as an anti-aging hack, and it truly amazes me that people still buy this shit) you need to subsidise a girl's education. Here and here are some good opportunities to redeem yourself. Since this Goddess has been know do some really dumb shit, she is a yearly subscriber to this and this and this (yessss, I tend to over compensate for my short comings)
These five commandments can be summarized into-
Love your uniqueness, it is the only thing you truly possess.
Keep a sane person always at hand, she will be the one to talk you down from doing something really stupid, or worse, something unnecessary.
Last but not least, and going back to my human anecdotes, last year I called my sister (high priestess of common sense) telling her that I was looking into microneedling. She told, me, without blinking, “go get a hobby”. Thus, here I am, enlightening you all. Don’t thank me, thank her. Now go and enjoy the holidays surrounded by people who love you because of your uniqueness.
Yours in divine (im)perfection,
THE Goddess
PS: if you want a post with information on what really works to BE (not look) younger longer (scientifically proven) let me know in the comments and I'll provide it. That's just how cool I am. It will be a short and incredibly boring post.
*Xanthippe, Socrates’ wife, did not have any such principles, but she is described as "the hardest to get along with of all the women there are." So I sort of fell in love.
^It is actually very funny how the article I linked to show you how Berlusconi had a skin shortage issue was all about criticising how the woman posing next to him had done all this plastic surgery work. Patriarchy! why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy sister's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Here is another picture of Berlusconi, because the man was just ridiculous.
**100€ is a random amount that I consider excessive. Could be lowered to 50€, all in order to get some more girls into schools.
I was scrolling along, reading your post, planning on letting you know I enjoyed it, when I read this line;
“ …last year I called my sister (high priestess of common sense) …”
I thought you might like to hear a humorous , and totally opposite version of a ‘sister conversation’. Same topic but the antithesis of your sister. Living a considerable distance from each other, our relationship mostly consists of telephone conversations. Here is an average scenario; if she calls me and says, “ I want to FaceTime, you never want to ( I hate the staring into the phone and looking at each other when the conversation borders on the verge of sheer boredom ) , I know she just indulged herself with Botox and lip injections. She feels it is a necessity, her income states otherwise. I agreed once , a month ago. FaceTime on, she’s looking up at the ceiling and I , am looking up her nostrils. Yup, all botoxed up and no place to go. Here’s the thing; When cornered, she totally denied having anything done. “Who me? I would never…”
me; “ oh come on, you most definitely had lip injections”.
Denied. Angry.
You are correct, the lip injections look nasty.
Sisters, loved unconditionally. We get older, but the dynamics stay the same. Glad your sis is the ‘voice of reason’. Thanks for the fun. Oh, and I loved the ‘Thou shalt’ ....section.
STANDING OVATION, both to the perspective, as well as your great skill as a writer.