SOOTHING OUR SOCIAL/SEXUAL/SPIRITUAL STRIFE
Dear naked nurse,
How long does it take to grow out of shallow romantic superficiality? When do we stop caring about thin/fat, rich/poor, beautiful/ugly?
-shamed in Chicago
Dear shamed,
Some will achieve full non-shallow maturity...on our deathbed! Before that, lotsa luck. I wish i could be more encouraging, but selfishness is our core cultural value, scarcity is the societal status quo, and fear our primary motivation. All that was a crippling cocktail a century ago, but in the mass media age, it's devastating. By the time we're teenagers, the exponential, excremental, endless unfolding of unnatural, sexist, ageist beauty images burned into our brains is baggage we'll never unlearn.
In all fairness, a tiny percentage of us, after years of focused discipline, do come close to actual non-shallowness. But it's always a house of cards.
Of course, many others embody a surface (ha!) approximation of non-shallowness, simply due to limited options. Limited options, not love, makes the world go 'round.
How can we nudge ourselves onto the non-shallow path? It's a long, hard road of unflinching self-analysis. A great starter is this three-movie marathon: "Shallow Hal", Lovely & Amazing", and "Fat Girl". Watch, and let the internal (or external) dialogues begin.
unflinching understandings,
the naked nurse
Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!
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