Getting younger day by day
Partly for my own benefit, I’m writing this post to serve as a guide for myself and to remind myself what it takes to oppose aging — not just to halt it, but to reverse it. Part of the problems that lead to aging are physical, and the other part of the problems are behavioral and emotional. First, the necessary non sequitur. Actual age cannot be opposed any more than the Arrow of Time. If you find a way to defeat the latter, then certainly the former is a moot point. (Unless of course you seek to keep your temporal frame moving forward while reversing the universe, which is what most people actually want.) Since we aren’t changing the number of “years” (as sloppily fallacious a definition of time that is) that you’ve been on this earth, we only want to change the appearance of it.
I’ll start with things that are relatively easy to change, such as single-event occurrences, and then lead into more difficult behavioral and emotional changes. But most necessarily, first, is the mindset. Most people get older because they are in love with their age. In some way, they love the scars, the weary look, the pain, because they think that it makes them who they are. They see themselves as the sum of their experiences only, and their age is the marker of that. Well hey, I’ve got news for you. You are who you are. Nothing is going to change that. The only things that can change it are the same experiences which change you into someone else, which you are already in love with. So stop BS’ing your complacency. Second, the things that make you look old, seem old, act old, feel old, have nothing to do with you at all. It’s simply the accumulation of the dust of time. We all love young people, partly for their seeming youth, but half of that is simply because they look clean. If you put a shiny expensive marble stone outside, it looks so new and everyone loves it. But after 20 years of bird crap, everyone hates it and thinks it needs to be replaced with something young. Only the stone loves its coating of crap. But then the city decides its more cost effective to powerwash it, and oh hey, it looks new again. That’s what you are going to be doing. Powerwashing yourself to get rid of both the appearance of age and shortly, it’s effects.
Easy Powerwash (in list form):
- Hair simply grows longer, trim it. (Fig 1) Nose hair, ear hair, back hair, girl-moustache-hair — it’s got to go. Its not “growing in weird places” now that you’re old, it’s simply growing where it always was, but hadn’t become visible yet.
- Start washing your face with cetaphil semi-daily (Fig 2). It takes 5 minutes and keeps your face clean. That crap in your skin isn’t you, its just crap dust the wind was blowing in your face that couldn’t be cleaned out fast enough.
- Get a professional facial once every couple of years. Never had one? Get one. I thought it was the gayest thing, but then was quite happy I did it. Consider this “cleaning up” and “repairing” your body. You do it to your house, kitchen, car, etc. Your body shouldn’t be exempt from maintenance.
- Throw out your old clothes and go buy new ones. Buy them with someone who knows what looks good on you and is fashionable nowadays. Don’t want to? Hey you’re talking to the biggest anti-shopping-anti-fashion person there is. But guess what, all clothes are fashion, old clothes are not only old, but a) fitting technology has gotten better, and b) if you’ve gotten comfortable in them psychologically, you’ve probably done so physically as well, and you’ll need to change your physique as well. So get rid of “old” trappings. They aren’t you at all.
- Watch the movie “Eat Drink Man Woman”, pay attention to the father.(Fig 3)
- Buy a Sonicare toothbrush and use it. It whitens your teeth, encourages gums to regrow, and makes your mouth feel super clean.(Fig 4)
- Buy Crest white strips and clean that coffee yellow shit off your teeth entirely. (Fig 5)
- Go to the doctor and get your ears cleaned. Or get an earwax cleaning kit on amazon. Nothing makes you feel younger like being able to hear better. After my ears were cleaned (by doctor), I could hear my individual hairs rustling against each other on my head. (Fig 6)
- Go see and ENT (ear nose throat) doctor. Most people accumulate infections in their sinuses or other problems as they get older, and these problems disrupt their sleep, or reduce daily blood-oxygen levels making them age more quickly.
- Get a professional massage. Both sports and deep tissue. Both your skin and your muscles will perform better.
- Look at your hair & yourself psychologically. Both men and women. Is it thinning? Men – Yes, if you’ve got the confidence, shave it off and make a statement. Both, if you feel psychologically weakened by it, go see a hair doctor and get it fixed with implants or some supplement. Many times “thin” hair is caused by under-nutrition, so check with a nutritionist as well.(Fig 7)
- Trim your nails; kids are always chewing their nails off or breaking them off on things, you look old because you allowed cuticles to keep pushing out tons of nail, now you look like an unkempt ogre(ess).
- Make a list of physical ailments to be repaired, including where you feel less efficient, tired, worn out, and why.
- The point is, this is MAINTENANCE that you are doing. It is worth the investment in yourself. Don’t be an old-school FORD, found on road dead, just because you don’t want to change the oil or add coolant. If you have kids and think that you don’t have the time or money to afford that 1 ounce of prevention now, just see how much they starve when you have to pay for 5 ounces of cure later. Psychological prevention now is worth just as much as the problems you’ll cause down the road for your perceived inadequacies.
This was a short list of one time “easy” things. If you have suggestions, please let me know! The additional (and more important) things are behavioral and emotional. They’ll be harder because they require small changes to your daily routine and ways of thinking, but are worth it. So I’ll address that next, and hopefully I’ll remember to take my own advice!
