Are enternainment and art not supposed to lift us up and give us emotional reprieve to some measure? Are they not often used as forms of recreation…. meaning to re-create ourselves?

TV, Movies, Magazines…. are these not expected to be trustworthy escapes? Yet they knife us not in the back, but in the face, head, and heart as we gaze at them.

With this said, I am all for a standard to aspire to. Part of my fitness strategy is to get a clear vision of what I want to look like. I do this by working to achieve a physique like certain trainers I know. I am not fixated, I do not believe I am out of balance. I just do it to the degree I can and accept what I can’t.

But what of the thousands and perhaps millions of people, mainly women, who watch Caleigh Duchesne strut down the sandy beach in her heels and low-cut top with cleavage showing toward the corpse from the crime scene she was just called to. Or read the mags of which you speak only to be left feeling unworthy because they are not as thin, toned, smooth, whatever as the images they see.

And what of the millions of dollars that are spent to create subtlely manipulative ploys to drive the message deeper and deeper into our culture and psyche(s) that “this” is the standard?

Obviously not an easy thing to just put down or body image issues would not be rampant. Nor would clothing sizes be drifting downward to where size12 is now labeled 5.

And guys are manipulated too. Whats are all these “Grow your Penis” spam emails about. Or the infomercial that promises more size.

Or how did GM ever convince men that there was ever anything practical about owning a Hummer for anyone but the military? How many little guys drive big trucks?

We guys get worked too. Not the same way, and not likely to the same degree.

Life isnt getting any less complex. I think I’ll keep working my 12 steps and let a lot of this nonesense pass by.

Life is good today since it took a turn for the simpler.

Ciao.

Chaz

However, gotta give O magazine some props for not being the scare-mongering sensationalist waste of trees the other mags are.

Are there any warning signs for when your vagina falls out? ‘Cause now I’m worried!