Vanity means excessive pride in your appearance, but interestingly, it is also means a lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness and pointlessness. We often describe arrogant people as having a “big ego”, but its a misonomer because only those with little sense of self (i.e. ego) have a need to brag, exaggerate or publicise themselves excessively. So if you wanted to be scientific, you’d have to say that they actually have very little ego, and those who are vanity have very little to them either.
Today I was talking to Amy about the absurd Channel 4 programme (Super-Skinny Me: The Race to Size Zero) where two retarded presenters embarked on a 6-week starvation course to get to size double-zero as soon as possible. What started out as a promising insight into the mind of the eating-averse was clearly cringe TV with very little education value at all. I have a slightly different perspective on it, as you can probably imagine.
I have huge sympathy for the suffering of those with body image disorders that has led them to where they are. We have them in my own family and I’ve lost count of the friends who have been affected by them, directly and indirectly. I’m not attacking the people personally per se, rather the whole concept of such a disorder. I’m not denying the power and/or effect of the illness. Often we are too wrapped up in pitying these people and don’t really say what needs to be said.
That it’s utterly pathetic, and one of the worst forms of self-indulgence and intellectual bankruptcy.
Sorry if you don’t like that or that it’s ever so slightly insensitive. I may just follow this up with an article called “Shut The Fuck Up”. No-one likes to hear that these poor powerless victims are actually idiots, but they unfortunately are. Compassion and understanding might be necessary for the cause of their illness, but the sickness itself must never be given licence or excuse to continue. Those who suffer need to get help, as most know they are already ill. I don’t have any time or care for people who are ill but refuse to get better. You have no right to complain.
To get right to the issue, body-image disorders are an entirely Western-world phenomenon. They don’t occur in the first and second world. They are a consumer disease of the mind, and equally infectious as any other one that might spread by other means. Starving children in Vietnam or Chad don’t suffer from Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia. Teenage girls in Tsunami-destroyed Asian communities don’t get a complex that they are fat or unattractive. The whole thing is about wanting to be loved, like every other Western disease like alcoholism, drug addiction or gambling problems.
Its also important to point out that these disorders are not just suffered by women, there are minorities of men who are affected by them too.
My own rhetorical campaign is to round up all these pathetic narcissists onto a Boeing 747 and drop them in the middle of Africa to find their way home. You eat or you die. You fight or get killed. Your looks count for nothing. What you wear is irrelevant. Your complaints fall on deaf ears. You see real, true human suffering that puts your own feeble dissatisfaction into perspective. Nature grinds you to remove your vanity to equip you for sheer survival. You find out you don’t actually need any consumer crap that you have been brainwashed to think you can’t live without. The simple things become joys. You learn how minor your grumbles are and how to be grateful for what you have.
It’s fairly easy to understand how the group of sicknesses work – how they develop, what their symptoms are and why they are difficult to treat. I’ve read the documentation extensively but it still doesn’t take away my central frustration, which is that those who suffer with them are unavoidably shallow, emotionally immature and intellectually apathetic. It’s about self-esteem, control etc. Yadder yadder. Knowing how something works doesn’t make it any better. Doctors are officially trained in medical school to equate the love of food with the love of life.
You just need to take 5 minutes to THINK. Yes, it may be an emotional issue of the heart and a compulsive illness that spirals slowly, but the fact that none of the sufferers can bring themselves to research, read or even enquire says a lot to me. Maybe not eating does strange things to your brain chemistry and causes extreme fatigue, but that’s surely not 24hrs a day. If not, none of them would even function. I’m wary of appearing cruel or naïve, but for me, excessive worrying about sensitivity feeds the collective kindness that spreads and propagates these illnesses in the first place.
Human attractiveness is entirely subjective. Everyone finds different things attractive, hence the maxim about beauty being in the eye of the beholder. That simply means that there is no universal scale or barometer for general beauty or attractiveness. It’s a fallacy, a lie, and a false reality.
Evolution and biology clearly states that attractiveness and value/worth is based on our fitness (in a Darwinian sense) for passing on our genetic and acquired traits. We look for qualities that mean our children will have the highest chance of survival, and our genes the highest chance of being passed on. This is the simple reason we tend to find “athletic” build the most attractive, generally speaking. Physical durability, intelligence, dynamic communication or social status are desirable qualities to pass on, hence we find them attractive in others. We may find specific features that are variable, but our unconscious choice is a complex one fundamentally based on how likely it is that our children and genes will survive when combined with the other person’s.
I’ve never, ever met a man who was attracted to skinny women. Ever. Skinny size zero means ill, gaunt, weak, and a very bad choice to mate and pass on our genes with. On the other end of the scale, fat or obese people are also equally unattractive because they are less mobile, physically durable or mentally proficient (i.e. lacking self-discipline or will). I’ve never met a woman who was specifically attracted to skinny men either. Most girls are obsessively critical of their own, and others’ appearances but aren’t too worried about their potential boyfriend’s. There’s a wonderful paradox – the more attractive you try to make yourself, and the more you reach for perfection, the more unattractive you become.
They also all assume men want a certain type of woman, who looks a specific way. They read men’s magazines and listen to their conversations. When men talk about things, they objectify them. A woman on the street becomes a thing, an object, or a something (like a sports car). Someone they know and care about is a person, and they don’t think the same way. As soon as a girl becomes part of their social and/or emotional life, the way he looks at her changes because she is no longer an object. If you look at the girlfriends or partners men have, they don’t tend to fit the mould most women think they should be in, and try to fit into for the first few months of their relationships.
No-one is saying the pressure on girls to be attractive and/or successful isn’t huge. Having a career, snagging a successful man, building a stable family and home are all massive goals every woman is expected to live up to. The media fills us with images and headlines that drive us to buy their products and says we should all be a certain way. Once you understand these are just simply marketing techniques, you start losing sympathy with those who never bother to think about it too, as it’s not exactly a revelation. The trouble is women think in herds, and not enough of them have the ability to think or live independently for themselves.
Thinking weakens the stranglehold of any illness. Education is the cure for ignorance. Knowledge prevents suffering.
And the revelation? You are being sold something. It is not truth. It is not real.
The truth, in my experience, is that people with body-image disorders are utterly self-obsessed. Obsessed with themselves, how they feel, what they look like and what others think of them. It’s about as superficial as it gets. They are the centre of their own universe and everyone else’s. Their concern for others is limited to what others think of them. Its not arrogance, its narcissism. And a very ugly, sad form of it too. Their spiritual capacity is almost zero because they only have room for their obsession with themselves.
Unattractiveness is generally spearheaded by 2 distinct issues that aren’t very well known, strangely enough. The first is inflexibility, as it declines with age - newborn babies are infinitely flexible in their limbs, whereas OAPs have difficulty moving. Being physically flexible creates the impression of youth. The second is proportion. We tend to only notice obtrusive body parts when they stand out from the rest of us, creating the impression of unattractiveness. If you have a huge ass with skinny legs, its going to be noticeable, but most guys rarely complain about a size 14 or so when everything is in proportion with everything else. Faces we find attractive tend to be symmetrical like most beauty is in nature.
There are even organised groups of morons who see depriving themselves of sustenance as a misunderstood lifestyle choice. I have few words than descibe my utter contempt and disgust for them. As far as i’m concerned, these self-indulgent, misguided and revoltingly complacent sub-humans don’t deserve the blessing of life they so flagrantly take for granted. One can only hope their choices kill them before we have to pay for their medical treatment.
Beauty is skin deep and doesn’t last. Physical attraction is the initiator for contact but after that, you need some personality and maturity to be something more to have a relationship with. Sorry, but that’s the way it is, and if all you have is your looks and sexuality, you are in for a very empty and dull existence once you realise life is about more than appearances. It’s superficial and about vanity, no matter how painful the issues are underneath. Being obsession with looks and perfection is a pointless emotional crusade with no ending, no fulfilment and no spiritual depth. To be obsessed with looks (yours or someone else’s) truly and simply means one painful thing – you are a very, very shallow person and you need to find more in your life. Luckily, it’s curable.
The uncomfortable truth is that you’re not actually that important, and illnesses of that nature are about wanting to be loved and feeling special. Few people genuinely care about you or give you a second thought. Your suffering is nothing compared to others in this very nasty world. They see you, and then you are gone. Most are so wrapped up in their own problems that are more pressing than you. If you are that affected by what other people think, you need to see a therapist because your life moves in the direction of your most dominant thoughts. If you’re sensitive to it, you’re going to get trampled on and beaten.
I can’t express how fucking sick and tired i am of girls who transparently try and use their sexuality as a crowbar to manipulate me, thinking i don’t notice it or am as profoundly dumb as anyone else with a Y chromosome. Female arrogance can be shocking. I know very well the mind is the most powerful erogenous zone and i can turn a woman on just by talking to her (a large percentage of ladies can apparently reach orgasm through thought alone - i have to work on that one). I’ve only found one girl who can do the same to me. What i would give for a woman who excites me with her mind and spirituality rather than her body suit. It seems to be completely beyond anyone and far too much hassle when you can just pop on a low-cut top and pull a pub chav for some short-lived attention/ego fix.
I may seem cold and cruel when the origin of all this behaviour is the need for love, but compassion doesn’t solve all ills. I believe you are your own saviour, and if you know you are ill, then you need to get help. I believe we all have the strength and dignity to pull ourselves out of the holes we’ve fallen into, and that pity and cutesyness just serves to aggravate the problem. Sometimes a little direct bubble-bursting can be just what the doctor ordered.
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