Why Nail Polish Should Never Smell Like Cherries

Dear Beautiful Readers,

Sometimes it'd be easier just become a nudist.

It's not that people should be running around with their crooks and crannies showing (an expression loving stolen from my grandmother by the way), but perhaps we'd all shut up and get over our bodily insecurities. Bodies are machines, they are meant to be useful. Hair is really an organic form of a coat, so why is it acceptable to make fun of old men with hair backs at the pool? Indeed it is a bit disturbing to see a chubakka double towel off at the beach, but two thousand years ago he probably would have been commended for his natural ability to survive! He would have been respected like the silver backed gorilla, literally. Our ancestral Grandmothers would be fawning over his furriness. Perhaps a strange extended metaphor, but please bear with me.

We are created to survive. This whole lack of self confidence is really a modern habit. Do you see elephants caring if their hips are too wide? Are there goats complaining about the length of their beards? No, because animals know exactly what's going on. There are so many possibilities for things to go wrong inside the human body, from errors in cellular respiration to minor malfunctions in the reproduction of DNA. So why spend time dwelling on superficial imperfections when the interior ones are the faults that matter? It's crucial to have a mouth, it's more than less so to have an aesthetically pleasing one. We really are worrying about the little things as a species. How terrible it is to imagine that our eventual downfall will be due to a lack of self confidence.

The point I'm trying to make is one that hits home with a lot of high school students, myself included: we are made to work properly, not to look pretty. Lately I've been talking to the gang and we've all come to dislike our appearances for the most insignificant reasons. It's heartbreaking to think that a perfectly formed person can hardly look herself in the mirror. I love my friends dearly, and the struggle to make peace with body type is not going to disappear for us anytime soon. We are young and restless, making us more susceptible to over-think our reflections. I'm trying to change my attitude from a resentful perfectionist to a practical thinker who oozes confidence.... emphasis on the trying.

There's really no logic holding a grudge against your own body. So let's tear off the expectations of modern culture and feel good. Besides, beauty procedures and products are a bit terrifying. For example, right now my nails smell like Cherry Jolly Ranchers...that's probably not healthy.

"I have a perfect body, but sometimes I forget. I have a perfect body, because my eyelashes catch my sweat." -Regina Spektor

Make Peace this Season,

Arctic Hipster