Aging Can be Cool

Aging is a natural process for every living being. This is the name given to our natural progression from birth to death. It is an unavoidable and natural progression of life; humans have always been comfortable with aging, and age in itself has been a widely respected attribute in many cultures across the world. However, somewhere along the way, we started treating aging like a problem to be solved rather than a journey to be embraced. Wrinkles became something to hide. Grey hair became something to cover. And the word old, once associated with wisdom, experience, and grace, became a synonym for "uncool," "irrelevant," or "unattractive." 

The stigma around aging is louder than ever in today's social media era. People do so many things to hide their age or specifically "not to look old." Entire industries thrive on our collective fear of growing and looking old. What was once targeted at people in their 40s or 50s is now aimed at those as young as 24. We are instilling fear of aging at a very young age. “Start fighting age before it even shows.” This isn’t just marketing - it’s mental conditioning and fear-mongering. We’re teaching people in their twenties to be afraid of looking thirty.

What makes it worse is our casual language. The way we casually use the terms "young" to mean "cool" or "beautiful" and "old"  to mean "dated" or "ugly" creates a perception that being old means uncool and something to be scared of. We say things like “She looks so young for her age!” as a compliment or use “old” as shorthand for boring, outdated, or unattractive. When “young” means cool, beautiful, or worthy, then what does that make “old”? The message sinks in, often unnoticed but deeply felt: growing older means losing value.

This has resulted in people spending considerable portions of their income just on their looks, especially to look younger than their age, as they feel that natural looks for their age are not socially acceptable anymore. And it’s not an equal-opportunity issue. Women, in particular, bear the brunt of this burden. They face more rigid beauty standards, more scrutiny, and more pressure to look forever youthful. Body shaming disproportionately affects women - at work, in relationships, and in society at large. Often, it's not just society doing the shaming, it’s other women, too. The internalized pressure is that strong.

But here’s the truth: aging is not a flaw, it’s a privilege.

People often forget that not everyone gets to grow old. Aging means you’ve lived your life. You’ve endured and survived. You’ve learned and grown. Each wrinkle tells a story. Each grey hair is a milestone. Strength doesn’t only belong to the young; there’s a different kind of strength that grows with age: emotional depth, self-awareness, resilience, perspective, and wisdom. So, how do we change the narrative?

Let's start by changing the connotation of the word old. Being old shouldn’t mean being less than your younger version; it shouldn't mean being uncool, dated, or weak. It should mean being more than your younger self - more experienced, more layered, more compassionate, more poised, more nuanced, more human. We need to stop praising people for “not looking their age” as though looking your age is something shameful. Let’s normalize aging faces, celebrate changing bodies, and value character over cosmetic perfection.

Aging isn’t something to battle or run away from. It’s something to live, experience, and celebrate. And honestly, aging can be cool. We can make it cool: by honoring the people who’ve walked longer roads, by rejecting toxic beauty ideals, and by proudly becoming those people ourselves. Because if we’re lucky, we’ll all get old someday. Everyone wants to live long, so why fear age? Why not make it something worth looking forward to?

Thank you for reading, and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved. Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

My "weird" tiger tooth

I have a unique arrangement of my teeth, they can make a challenging project for any orthodontist. I have one tooth that is different than others, called "tiger tooth" and I call it "weird" not because I think it is weird, but just to highlight the fact that it is unique and different from my other teeth. While growing up in India I never felt that my teeth were unique, as there were quite a few with similar teeth. However, when I came to the USA I was amazed to see the nearly perfect alignment of teeth of almost every individual. I never knew about orthodontists while growing up, also, I never heard of anyone getting their teeth arrangement fixed. Going to a dentist was a rare event in my neighborhood, people visited the dentist only and only when tooth pain became unbearable or there was some accident where they had some damage to their teeth. We did not know anything about annual dental cleaning or flossing regularly. So, like many others, my spectacular teeth remained as they naturally chose to arrange themselves. This was perfectly normal until television and movies started dictating all over the world what is a perfect smile and how having perfectly arranged teeth is an essential aspect of being presentable.  

When my kids got into their teens they needed to visit an orthodontist as I don't think they can survive in today's world with the kind of teeth that I have :) Occasionally, some young child tells me that my teeth need to get fixed, and I nicely tell them that they don't, they are just different from theirs, the same way as my skin color or my height or bodyweight is different than many people around me, my teeth are little different than many others around me. They accepted my answer, but their question indicated how conditioned we and our society are getting due to the standardization of certain beauty or appearance standards. I am not saying resisting these things is easy, rather, it is extremely difficult to swim against the tide. How do you enter a room where everyone is sitting in a suit and you are the only one without it, especially when you are a beginner and most people don't know who you are? It's frightening for many that they will be judged based on their teeth, body hair, or clothes. Therefore, most of us try to fit in and subscribe to the standards dictated to us. I never consciously chose not to go to the orthodontist, I never had access to them, due to money and other reasons. But when I could afford an orthodontist, it was my choice not to get my teeth "fixed." This was for all kids like me who were not aware of the dictated beauty standards. Every smile is beautiful, is a cliche, people say it, but the conditioning is so deep that you will never see a toothpaste or any other advertisement with a person like me, not because we don't smile but because our smile doesn't fit in the standardized definition of a beautiful smile.

It is also true that I never faced any problems due to my teeth, people are extremely cordial and nice to me, but I see the trauma and stress many go through at a very young age because they have something that doesn't fit into the standardized definition of beautiful. I encourage them to create their own standards and be confident about them. Wouldn't it be amazing if we all express and enjoy the beauty in our own way, rather than trying to fit in the definitions created by someone who doesn't even know us? 

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

We all are beautiful

The recent Miss America crowning of Nina Davuluri, an American lady of Indian origin attracted a lot of media attention in India as well as in the US. Here in the US, it was somewhat controversial because of many racist comments on Twitter about her origin (some thought she was Arab or Muslim or from some non-American country), most of them were angry that how come a person with non-American looks could win Miss America beauty contest. All this was because of her looks and origins. I am personally not at all interested in these beauty pageants, they are heavily commercialized events and solely intended for the marketing purposes of beauty products targeting specific markets, these titles are awarded to target markets of specific countries or ethnic groups, and there is no real purpose behind these contests except to attract media coverage and make money. Every country has its own version of Miss, Mr, or Mrs something. But this post is not about these pageants or their relevance but about some people's obsession with fair skin. Some people are obsessed with fair skin so much that having dark skin is considered ugly and unfortunate. I already wrote one post about the definition of beauty but in this post, I want to focus on the stigma associated with dark skin in some cultures.

Most contestants entering beauty contests fit into the commercial definition of beauty as far as their bodies and looks are concerned. The only difference in developed places like the US or Europe is that the skin color variety is more, one can find both dark and fair-colored (and in between) contestants participating in the event but in most Asian countries by default, all contestants are fair skinned even though in some countries (like India) most people are dark skinned. This is not because dark-skinned people are not allowed to compete or are being barred from participating but because they don't make the cut, they either don't participate or get rejected in preliminary screening. The main reason behind this is an obsession of people from these countries with fair skin. One can clearly see this just by looking at the names of some of the most popular skin care products in India like "Fair & Lovely" or "Fair & Handsome." The companies or people who advertise and sell these products don't even see anything wrong in these names or in the contents of their advertisements. 

I have no idea where this skin color bias has originated. I think at least in India it can be linked to the presence of the British or Europeans, they were very powerful and ruled the region for a long time, so I think people relate white skin with some kind of superiority. Maybe the same logic can be applied to some other places in the world where white skin is considered as more superior to dark one. Apart from this, I don't think there is any other reason, according to me any skin color is beautiful white, black, brown, dark, or fair all are beautiful, at least I can not pick one over another. Therefore, the preference for one particular skin color in people's minds must have some social reason as it has absolutely nothing to do with beauty. Commercialization of beauty products has resulted in aggressive marketing of all brands, in this process they don't care what they show in their ads or what they claim their products can do. All they want is to sell their product at any cost and they take advantage of these types of social perceptions. They also encourage people to mold themselves to fit into their definition of beauty. In India, I have seen the stigma associated with dark skin. Parents of children with dark skin worry about their kid's future, especially about their marriage. Parents of a girl child are more concerned, they even have to pay more dowry in many cases just because of the dark skin of their daughter.

People who think fair skin is better or more beautiful than dark don't even realize that indirectly they are being racist. Calling someone ugly just because of their skin color is a form of racism. We need to question this attitude and object to all advertisements that encourage such thinking no matter which company is making them and which celebrity is endorsing them. These companies have the right to sell their product in any market but they should not advertise them in a racist way. The advertisement that Shahrukh Khan did for Fair and Handsome is really disgusting. I wonder how he didn't realize how disgusting that ad was. I hope people get over this false notion that one skin color is more beautiful than another. We all come in different colors, shapes, and sizes, we all are beautiful no matter which advertisement says what. We need to remove the stigma associated with any skin color. A person's skin color or external appearance should not be the criteria to judge that person and brand them as beautiful or ugly. I think our society has evolved to such a level where we can understand that beauty is more than just external appearance and we all are beautiful, no matter what shape, size, or color.  

Thanks for reading and please share your views about this topic. 

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing] 

Links:

1. http://www.darkisbeautiful.in/

2. Dark is beautiful-Lakshmi Krupa

3. http://www.nanditadas.com/nanditawrites30_inc.htm

4. Dark is beautiful

5. India's unfair obsession with lighter skin