The words vanity and vain come from the Latin word for empty, or without substance or value.
When we alter our appearance, it's because we put value or merit in something that inherently has no merit.
We all want a reason to hold our head up high. Some look for it in athletics, others in academia, others in financial success. This woman looked for it by faking her physical appearance.
But the best reason is something we can't merit: we are made in the image and likeness of God. We are all little images of God, and if we truly understand that we have inherent dignity, then nobody can take that from us, no matter how poor or ugly or uneducated we are.
And then we won't feel the need to put ourselves high up. And we won't feel the need to put others below us. We'll want others to know their own dignity, so they might stand tall with us!
If you want everyone to stand tall with you, try meeting them where they are instead of pushing your world view as supreme.
Besides, why would someone want their worth to come from beauty, which is so fleeting? True and lasting beauty is in virtue, even non-religious people admire the sacrifices of soldiers for the sake of freedom, or the sacrifices of Gandhi for peace. These are truly beautiful.
Physical beauty is empty and devoid of merit. But like anything else we have, our physical height, our intelligence, our gift for music, our gift for software, it can be put to good use in the selfless service of others, at which point it becomes truly beautiful.
I get where you're coming from, as my personal values have this element in them as well. I'm probably heavily influenced by my Protestant upbringing, which also gives me the moral that "laying moral judgement on others is a vanity."
That said, it's also interesting to look at moral themes and personal values through the lens of cultural evolution. For the vast majority of history, it's pretty much been a hard fact that one's physical appearance breaks down with age (Keanu Reaves being some Magickal exception).
Therefore the "beauty is empty" moral might be seen as a distilled admonition against relying too heavily on physical appearance, since that could cause some hardship later on.
Anyway, thank you for sharing. I appreciate finding other people that pursue True Beauty, whatever that may mean. The quest itself is a thing of beauty. lol
To help form our morals, we have to judge everything. This is an integral part of turning life experience into wisdom. But this isn't the same as judging people. I cannot know what's inside the mind and heart of my neighbor, even if he does something extremely evil. So I cannot condemn him for doing evil. I can condemn the evil itself, but I cannot condemn him, which is just another way of saying that he is not salvageable. Because people can change. I recognized this even before I was a Christian. That's also why it says of Jesus: "he will not quench a smoldering wick."
That's pretty easy when you invent a God. Rhetorical non-sense aside, fact is that appearance matters to people a lot... as does age. Making up rhetoric does not fix any of this, and only makes people's biases more subconscious. The best way to overcome their biases is technology, rather than words... as you can not subvert what you are seeing, as seeing is believing, where can easily subvert what you claim you believe.
Appearance matters even taking God into account. How we dress is a silent way of communicating to others what we value, what our business is, what kind of extra dignities we have, and how we think of others.
If for no good reason, the President went to the store in either his pajamas or renaissance clothing at 2pm on a Wednesday, he wouldn't be conveying his dignity as leader of a whole nation, he wouldn't be properly communicating his business there, he would be communicating his values, and he would be setting an example and a precedent.
This is merely a justification for self gratification through inordinate love of food and drink. There's a natural shame about being overweight, and it's unfortunate that people encourage others to push past that. Even non-religious people can see that this is unhealthy and just plain bad for us. I was about 50lbs overweight for a few years, but I never let go of the shame that it brought me, knowing it would mean giving up on my only hope of getting back to a healthy weight.
But I agree with you that those wrinkles are battle scars, that gray hair is the potential for wisdom, and that youth is not something to hang onto as if it were virtue itself.