Appearances are everything. Opinions are formed within the first 3 seconds of meeting someone, and those opinions are formed based almost entirely on appearance. Appearances influence our choices far more than we would like to admit, and penetrate much more than we realize. Appearances shouldn't be everything--but they are.
I recently read an article about a Harvard professor in her 80s who dyed her hair punk-rocker blue. This interesting individual made the point that beauty is youth, rather than "beauty is truth; truth, beauty" (Keats). Beauty should be truth. The Truth is beautiful. So why this emphasis on youth and staying young forever? Why are people afraid to grow old? Growing old means eventually they will die, and people are afraid to die.
I believe this is for two reasons. 1. In our current society, there is a lack of belief in an afterlife and a devaluing of life, and 2. people fear the unknown.
Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical Humane Vitae, predicted many changes in our society--that have come to pass--due to the use of contraceptives. It started small--just between two people--but once that door was opened, once one type of life became disposable, all life became disposable. What's to stop society from eliminating anyone it deems no longer useful? It is no longer just unborn children whose lives are threatened, but the handicapped, the elderly, really anyone society does not deem "productive."
Additionally, ours is a society that wants to take God out of everything. We try to remove morality and make decisions for "the good of all" without it. It's gone so far that our country no longer willing to acknowledge it is under God's protection in the Pledge of Allegiance (yeah, remember when they wanted to take that out?) Because of that, religion is a loosely held concept and many no longer believe in an afterlife. Instead, this life and this world is all you get. After that? Nothing and nothingness. You simply cease to be.
Now, tell me, if society deems the elderly useless and disposable, wouldn't that make you afraid to grow old? If growing old means growing closer to death, and you don't believe there's anything after that, wouldn't you be afraid to admit to anyone, even yourself, that you are aging?
And of course, people fear what they do not understand or do not know. This is part of being human. We don't know exactly what will happen when we die because, as Alfred Hitchcock so succinctly said, "One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although the Catholics have their hopes." And that's the key: we have hope. And faith. Hope that our Faith in the Love of God will bring us to eternal life. That is both true and beautiful. That's the beauty I want to see.
