Thursday, July 15, 2010

Pictureless

Still working on my technical difficulties and so once again, I am without pictures.
I will, however, provide links today.

I was thinking about the things we do to our bodies for fashion. In fact, one of my prizes is getting Crest Whitestrips or something like that to whiten my teeth. My teeth are not green, or yellow or brown--they are basically white already. But I feel like I want more. In fact, I have little calcifications on the surface of my teeth that make them look a little like the albino version of camoflaged, and a while back I talked to my dentist about having those scrapped off and then filled in with regular-colored tooth compound that will respond to whitening the same way the rest of my teeth will. Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I was thinking about my plans for whitening my teeth and this image popped into my mind.

Sure, it looks kind of cool, if you can stomach the risks and have faith that people will be able to ever look you in the face without cringing. I don't mind the sight of blood but the thought of implanting something in my eye definitely makes me queasy.

The point is, that whitening my teeth can be seen as essentially the same thing. Improving on nature, not for health reasons, but merely for my own vanity. And once you're willing to do something so drastic as invade your own eye with a foreign object for "glamour" or grind down your real, perfectly functional teeth to have some fake shelack pumped in there--and who knows if it won't look just as fake--where do you draw the line?

Teeth whitening hurts. A lot. My teeth get super-sensitive, and I've never been able to stick with it to really see any difference. I'm all for better living through chemistry, but does one "improvement" simply lead to others? If my goal is to be happy the way I am, am I undermining that happiness by opening this door?

Anyway, there's still a long way to go before I reach that bridge. I should focus on the changes I need to make now, naturally, for the purpose of becoming healthier and happier.

1 comment:

  1. First of all, that first link didn't work and I feel like you did it on purpose to tease us. Second of all, Heidi Montag is gross, and if you ever get even close to that line, don't worry 'cause I'll slap it out of you. Have you seen Better Off Ted? You should. Also, I don't know what you do to exercise, but I've been doing something lately that's helped me out a lot. I have a treadmill (look on craigslist or something and I'm sure you can find one cheap if you don't already have one) and I prop up my laptop on it and watch Netflix while I jog. Sometimes I'll even just walk fast. It makes the time go by a lot faster than exercising with music or in silence. I'll finish an episode of 30 Rock and look down and see I've been exercising for a whole 30 minutes! Afterward I feel less stressed, feel pretty good about myself, and am more motivated to eat healthy (for a few hours anyway). I think I almost have abs 'cause my rolls tuck in a lot easier into my jeans when I'm sitting down now.

    Anyway, fix that link 'cause my mouth's watering.

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