Body satisfaction
I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between happiness and body satisfaction. I guess I was always under the impression that happiness was completely separate from the body. But as I grow older and I am confronted with my own body breaking and performing poorly, I, of course, have to face the facts: if my body isn't performing up to par, then I'll be unhappy. This is troublesome to me because I know it's dangerous to locate happiness on the body. If we make our lives about our outsides, then we are only about outside matters. We are what we worry about, I guess.
I've been at war with my outside for a long time. I've lived a very bloated life. And that irritates me. I have spent over a decade of my life feeling fatter than I should be, and not necessarily because I was fat for a decade--I went up and down--but because I acutely feel that drive to fit my appearance into an acceptable mold. So to resist the acceptable mold, I have been overweight. So it's sort of a weird chain of events: first the mold must exist and be shaped by our parents and our culture. Second that mold must be enforced by parents and culture. Third the subject, i.e. me, must make vain attempts to adhere to the mold, and fourth, the subject must learn that fitting the mold is an impossible, unattainable goal (or, if attained, will bring unhappiness). And last, the subject must resist the mold without critiquing the mold's existence (because that would be a sin against culture).
Breaking the mold is hard. So far I've only managed to break 38 pounds of it. And I have no idea whether or not I'll actually be successful this time. But I've established an intimate relationship with my own fear of fitting the mold. And I think what I'll have to do is, when I reach my body destination, take heart that I'll be different enough that people won't judge me on my outsides alone.
Yeah, right.
I'll just have to grow thicker skin.
I've been at war with my outside for a long time. I've lived a very bloated life. And that irritates me. I have spent over a decade of my life feeling fatter than I should be, and not necessarily because I was fat for a decade--I went up and down--but because I acutely feel that drive to fit my appearance into an acceptable mold. So to resist the acceptable mold, I have been overweight. So it's sort of a weird chain of events: first the mold must exist and be shaped by our parents and our culture. Second that mold must be enforced by parents and culture. Third the subject, i.e. me, must make vain attempts to adhere to the mold, and fourth, the subject must learn that fitting the mold is an impossible, unattainable goal (or, if attained, will bring unhappiness). And last, the subject must resist the mold without critiquing the mold's existence (because that would be a sin against culture).
Breaking the mold is hard. So far I've only managed to break 38 pounds of it. And I have no idea whether or not I'll actually be successful this time. But I've established an intimate relationship with my own fear of fitting the mold. And I think what I'll have to do is, when I reach my body destination, take heart that I'll be different enough that people won't judge me on my outsides alone.
Yeah, right.
I'll just have to grow thicker skin.