Eyes of the beholder

Rick Melén

Our society has become so relentlessly beauty-centric, that if Atilla the Hun was really good-looking, considering the thousands of foes slain during the atrocities of war, littering the battlefields of the Roman Empire, the horrified social media users of today would have decried the depravity of his slaughter, yet also adding a fire emoji.

Longer life expectancies have only increased the time we spend being old, not the time we spend being young. So the search for the fountain of youth goes on and on. But what exactly does "beautiful" mean? Remember the "Twilight Zone" episode where a woman is undergoing surgery to fix her disfigured face, and the doctors and nurses, wearing masks and scrubs, unsure about their results, wait to unswathe her bandaged head, and when they do, they're horrified because she looks like Elly May from the "Beverly Hillbillies," on a planet where their own "normal" faces resemble those of a platypus crossed with a worn catcher's mitt? It was submitted for your approval quite a while ago, but the point was that the ideals of physical perfection vary so widely that they're almost impossible to pin down.

Do you have a generous backside, a big nose and no chin? Surely there's someone out there who loves you just the way you are, and is willing to overlook your personality. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, even if the eyes may be older. There's a commercial for skin cream that's supposed to eliminate bags under your eyes. It features a time-lapse video of a guy who appears as though he may have just escaped from prison, with dark circles under his eyes, possibly from staying up late binge-watching episodes of "Dexter," or maybe from blinking very fast, and at the end he looks like he may have gotten maybe a half hour more sleep than he usually does. For that you are welcome to pay $151 an ounce, even though the effects are only temporary. And people will line up with their wallets out and their crows feet outer.

If you want a more permanent solution, you may have to consider plastic surgery. Actresses often complain that Hollywood forces them into face-altering procedures as they age from "sexy hottie" into "sassy granny." Even the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" seem to have very few real body parts. The first thing they try is a lip augmentation that makes them protrude like a duck's. There's no denying that it changes their look. But does it make them appear younger or prettier? I'm not even sure that the procedure makes them more attractive to other ducks.

The next stop is cosmetic facial surgery, more commonly known as a "face lift." You see it all the time: an aging movie star disappears for a few months, and then magically resurfaces with a much weirder, surprised-looking expression that makes it look painful to smile. Their face lift was performed with a forklift.

It's possible that we're hurtling toward a world where the ideal of beauty is based on these unnatural-looking "enhancements." In some ways it's already happening.

Whatever Michael Jackson had wasn't a nose job, it was a nose career. For myself, I would never undergo any procedure that could interfere with my ability to sense the presence of chocolate chip cookies. Calling a nose job a "rhinoplasty" doesn't help much. "Wow, I could hardly recognize that rhinoceros after the procedure! SO hot! It still could stand to lose, say, 1,800 pounds, but it's a start!"

Not everyone is seduced by the promises of cosmetic surgeons. Nose jobs used to be fairly common back when I was younger, but now women are revolting. That may have been a poor choice of words. What I mean is that people are starting to embrace their natural ethnicity, genetics or whatever caused their own unique proboscis to sprout between their eyes. Barbra Streisand famously eschewed plastic surgery in the 1970s, when Hollywood insiders told her that her nose was holding her back. But soon her nose was the biggest thing in the business, and all she had to do was keep up with it.

Owning a human body is like owning a house. You can give it a coat of paint, and by the time you've fixed everything else, it's going to need another coat of paint. Getting older isn't going to be easy. You can either age "gracefully," and let gravity escort your flesh gently back down to earth, or you can have a few procedures done and risk people saying behind your back, "Whoa! Somebody had some work done!" I'm told I can be a bit of a wise guy, so I've had a few free offers to rearrange my face the quick and easy way, which I respectfully declined. Everyone wants to turn back the clock, but I'm just going to take it slow. I'll turn it back one hour next Saturday, and see where that gets me.

Join Rick and Trillium at Woods Tavern in Ossining, Friday, Oct. 23, at 6 p.m. Say hello at rlife8@hotmail.com.