I can honestly say I have tried to be perfect and, what do you know, it never works. I love to delve through Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and imagine what a glamorous life a model’s is. I get caught up in the fantasy of perfection, because if one is a model, one is automatically stunning and flawless. Someone is endlessly teasing their perfect hair, painting their perfect faces, and retouching their already perfect bodies. They are pampered and cared for and all they need to do is pout. Right? Well, to the naked eye this is exactly the case. But honestly who would want to live a life of constant traveling, living in hotels, striving to be flawless when even after all such hard work has been appreciated there is always something that needs to be touched up. One little hair out of place, one tiny dimple on their thigh, one weensy blemish that the outrageously expensive foundation failed to fully conceal. And after all is said and done, who’s to say that any one person truly is without flaws?
I know I'm not perfect. I mean, seriously, no one is. But everyone finds their own flaws magnified a hundred times! (And really, those "X25 Magnification Makeup Mirrors" only make things a hundred times worse. No human can see another face that closely!) And no one even gives a rip about anyone else's imperfections because they're too preoccupied with their own! Of course, maybe that's the only thing that distracts us most from everyone else: ourselves. America is obsessed!! When did "aging gracefully" become taboo? Or "the natural look" involve loads of neutral-toned eyeshadow and beige concealer?
Even so, it's not all physical stuff. It's all about the fifteen minutes of fame, trying to be the person that everyone wants to be around. Hey! Who has the most friends on Facebook, the most hits on MySpace, the most comments on YouTube? If it's not you, you might as well be someone else. And then maybe you'll get even more friends! Yay! But, wait, why hasn't anything changed? Because those people who were you're friends before, well they don't like you anymore. Time for another quick-change. Pretty soon, no one will know who you are. Will you? How many times can you go around the carousel with your eyes shut before you get so dizzy you don't know which way is up? Not many. Maybe twice? You'll probably throw up, too.
I suppose it’s all under the umbrella of “You can’t please everyone.” Because no matter how many people in the universe voted you most perfect, there was at least someone who voted against you. Everyone has his or her different tastes, and how often has life taught humanity that there is not one thing that everyone can agree on? Perfection is only such if everyone on this PLANET agrees to it being perfect. So why bother? It is never attainable. And even if you don’t fight to be “perfect,” someone must think you are, someone who thinks even your every imperfection is perfect. So its useless trying to be something that no human on the planet earth has managed, or will manage, to be.
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(photos by Mitchell Davis)
