Sun Worship

Let’s hope it’s true, but there seems to be only one place left where skin color really does matter: the beach. Or, maybe, the pool.

Now that vacation time is upon us, more and more people will start obsessing about their skin color. Some will go to the beach, while others will lounge around the pool, slathered with sunscreen, inhaling the chlorine fumes.

I have yet to figure out why people who douse themselves in SPF 75 worry about their tan.

Unfortunately, the sun is not your friend. It is not your skin’s friend and it is certainly not your face’s friend.

Too much sunshine applied indiscriminately to your skin will turn it into leather. Do you know how much moisturizer it takes to make that leather-like texture feel like soft skin?

Too much sun applied to your face will produce a script of lines and wrinkles. So much so that, if you are a true postmodern you will run screaming to your local cosmetic surgeon.

Fewer and fewer people believe in God, but pagan idolatry is alive and well. Citizens sport their atheism with pride, but they worship at the altar of the sun god.

It’s what’s wrong with our minds. We worship the uninhibited glory of youth, yet we conspire with the sun to look older than our years.

In the name of vanity we do serious damage to our skins, only to do penance by squandering a small fortune on lotions, potions and masks. When that fails we move up to Botox and face lifts.

All the while we forget that the best way to have our skin age gracefully and healthily is… to stay out of the sun. Next best is to wear sunscreen.

How can you age gracefully, without trying too hard to altar your appearance to the point where no one knows who you are? Go to the movies; go to the library; sit under a shade tree. You will not look like a tomato or an orange; your skin will not feel like a football; you will not need to numb your face with Botox, suffer cosmetic surgery or submit to hours of facials.

Keep in mind, when those cosmetic treatments work their magic they will make your face look like a Noh mask… porcelain and immobilized.

Ironically, you will think to yourself that the medical interventions will help you to save face. Unfortunately, when your face is loses its character lines, to the point of becoming barely recognizable, you will have lost face.

In olden days, age lines on your face denoted maturity, wisdom and experience. A young face might be more pleasing aesthetically and erotically, but if your face lacks the right kinds of lines you will look like you have not lived very long or very much. Or else, you will look like a simple-minded poser.

Surely, the great historical competition of our time is between youth-worshiping America and a China that practices filial piety.

For all the prattle about the love of nature, a cult to youth stands in defiance to natural progression. Once the glory days of your youth have passed, nature will age you… inevitably and inexorably.

A nation that worships youth is setting itself up for failure. If youth is the gold standard, most of your life is downhill. It’s depressing. If you believe that your best days were when you were a young adult, time will put more and more distance between you and your best days.

So, add some Prozac to the potions and lotions and cosmetic procedures.

Or else… try a little filial piety.