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The beauty of human beings 1
People assume that the young are more beautiful than older or old individuals. Is beauty innate to youth? Or is it innate to human beings?
I think that beauty is innate to human beings and that a primary reason why young people often look more attractive than older people is because the younger ones generally haven’t lived long enough for chronic damage to occur. How long has someone been depressed, had migraines, heartburn, stomach aches, hated his parents or her thighs? Illness is systemic, a soul-and-mind-inseparable-from-body effect that can influence the health of one or several organs, the circulatory and nervous systems, muscle tone, the color and texture of one’s skin and the aural and emotional tone of his laugh, indeed, everything that goes into the making of a human being. Chronic damage appears, among other places, on the surface of the body, in its appearance.
Taking care of oneself is a full-time occupation for which few people appear to have little time or inclination. Caring for oneself can be a pleasure of gradual and continual self-discovery. Maybe such kindness to oneself does contribute to a person’s beauty as she grows older.
