OUR CONTAINERS

Unless we are an identical twin, each one of us is walking around as a unique combination of our parents' DNA. This is part of life's lottery. It is lucky or it is unlucky. Once we are born into this world, there's only a limited number of alterations we can make to our ever changing "containers". 

Whichever culture a person lives in has its own standards as to which types of containers are deemed alluring, and which are not. First world cultures tend to attach an unwarranted amount of social significance to this. Too many people spend a tragic amount of energy, time, and money fretting over this challenge.

Women in such cultures are pressured into making their faces into a painted canvas. Some results of this are very beautiful, but they are only a culturally approved mask, and nothing more than that.

My unvarnished youth

I'm not saying that it's not a true pleasure to be at that momentary point in one's life where one's container looks so alive and fresh. If only we could convince the young to fully appreciate the transitory nature of this, and persuade them that aging is not a sin or embarrassing. Aging is life's success story, and that's just the way it is.

Our containers are just one aspect of our existence as we walk this planet. It is our visual identity, but not the most important thing about us. People who never come to realize this can end up going to drastic measures to try and stop the progression of time upon them. Most people who do that end up looking at least a little off base, or even no longer like the person whom others have come to know and love. Or worse, they end up looking sadly bizarre.

My unvarnished age

We all must try to keep our containers functioning properly. We all must try to stay out of physical harm's way. We all must come to realize that our containers are part of the "wakan tanka", the great mystery, of this universe.

Beauty beyond time and circumstance