When we get old, we all look the same

TIME is a great leveler. After it’s done with us, we all become ugh-ly and wrinkled, just like the once juicy fruit I placed in the ref two months ago and then forgot all about it.

This is why being alive at age 60 or 70 is a good thing. You have the perspective to compare the “then” and “now.”

The other day, as my wife and I were reminiscing about our younger days, she couldn’t believe that the classmates and friends she used to admire and envy because of their good looks are now looking...well…so different, to be kind about it. As she scans the photos of her former high school crushes on Facebook, she is aghast to see them all pathetic looking. “Losyang” and “pendeho” were a few of the cruel words I heard her utter, with a slight hint of disappointment in her tone.

Looking at me, she said that at least I have remained looking the same all these years—ordinary looking. Ouch! But without skipping a beat, she rejoined that she cared more for the handsome person inside me. Was she just ribbing me?

Are you familiar with that app that enables you to look young again? Narcissists and vain people love to use it on their photos and then enjoy posting the manipulated images.

But what I like is another app that lets you see how a young person would look like as an old man or woman. Try using that app on anyone you idolize for their beauty and see if you would still go crazy about their looks. Thanks to technology, you don’t have to live long to see the beautiful object of your fantasy transform into an abject-looking feeble old person. Instant killjoy.

The old truism is really true, that nothing lasts, not even beauty. But still we put so much value on physical appeal and invest so much money and effort to make ourselves look attractive.

Sadly, physical beauty matters in our world. Beauty rules! Why do you think we still have so many beauty contests, not only for women but now even for men and LGBTQ members and even mature women and housewives? There’s even a deplorable beauty contest for adolescent nubile girls dressed up as adults!

Blame it on the unconscious bias that is ingrained in every one of us. Even in our own families, we are biased in favor of better-looking children or relatives. This is the inconvenient and uncomfortable fact. We don’t even have to do research on it.

Because our world remains highly fixated on outward appearances some couples opt for IVF, in-vitro fertilization, so they can choose the genes of their future child to make sure she or he would be born better looking and thus enjoy the inherent advantages of attractiveness in many areas of life.

Based on my own personal experience and observation, those who are good-looking are generally treated better. It’s called beauty privilege.

If there is the phenomenon of “ageism,” which is discrimination against old people in general, there is also “lookism,” which describes a practice where decisions are based on appearance. There is something called a “beauty premium” that exists across society. Our choices of hirees, friends, leaders, are made based upon how someone looks.

One psychologist explains: “Good looking men and women are generally regarded to be more talented, kind, honest and intelligent than their less attractive counterparts.” Of course in my experience, it’s not true at all. My more attractive classmates and workmates were mostly intelligence-challenged.

Is it the culture we are born into that makes us beauty-biased? Maybe the movies we grew up on have something to do with it. Or is this bias in our genes or wired into our brain?

Can we change our perception of beauty? Can we turn ugliness into beauty in the eyes of beholders?

In Italy there’s a freak event called “Festival of the Ugly” in which contestants vie for the title of “the ugliest person”. There’s an organization behind it. They hold elections every year for the officers. Apparently, there is a lot of camaraderie and belonging. It’s their counter answer to society’s cult of beauty.

Applause for the effort, but to me it’s a losing battle, futile and pathetic. For one, ugly women aren’t buying it.

If you belong to the few who have the gift of beauty as well as the rest of us who are ordinary looking and unattractive, listen to this old man who now has a vantage view of what happens to the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly when they reach a certain age.

In the end, it does not matter. Friends will flatter us by saying we haven’t aged a bit, that we’re still “gorgeous as ever” but the mirror won’t lie: wrinkled, hair thinning, and facial muscles sagging.

The message is clear: from age 60 and on, we need to stop all efforts to delude ourselves into thinking that we are still attractive and desirable. The much-vaunted beauty privilege during your younger years can no longer give you an edge. It has lost its value, having depreciated year after year, as you advance in age. Even for the fairest woman and handsomest of men, this privilege can take you only so far.

The cult of beauty and worshipping at its altar have robbed us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life really worth living. Instead of investing money and effort on the external concerns of aging such as aesthetic surgeries and visits to beauty salons or stem cell treatments, it’s better to spend it on “the art of soulful aging,” a term coined by Thomas Moore, the spirituality writer of the book “Care of the Soul.” One point Moore strongly makes is that we age best by cultivating a rich inner life. It means seeking out what serves to uplift and enrich your spirit. Find them, hold on to them, and spend the rest of your life enjoying them. Not only will you feel better about yourself, you’re helping to enhance your personal inner growth.

This is why I love spending time with the small circle of senior friends I now have. We have made peace with our looks. We can afford to laugh at our physical imperfections. We are not self-conscious anymore. We point to our white, thinning hair and our “kulubot sa mukha” and do not hesitate to agree and say “me too.”

So the talk is now more about activities that relate to our inner life. One of us has decided to be a lay minister in his local parish. One friend has rediscovered his yen for oil painting, while another has picked up digital photography to occupy himself. I enjoy a lively conversation with a kindred spirit reveling in our mutual enjoyment of books, music and films. Mostly our talks are about healthy pleasures that satisfy our deeper needs. I guess this tips the balance towards the other way. After all, the first half of our lives have been spent pursuing our obsession with externals that never last.

In the end, this is how I like old folks like me to fade away, with a face and body that’s no longer beautiful but with something more fulfilling: a beautiful life well and roundly lived.