A QUOTE ON BEAUTY
This comes from a very interesting book I'm reading these days, by Anne LaMott, titled "Grace (Eventually):  Thoughts on Faith."  She writes:

"This culture's pursuit of beauty is a crazy, sick, losing game, for women, men, teenagers, and with the need to increase advertising revenues, now for pre-adolescents, too.  We're starting to see more and more anorexic eight- and nine-year-olds.  It's a game we cannot win.  Every time we agree to play another round, and step on to the court to try again, we've already lost.  The only way to win is to stay off the court.  No matter how much of our time is spent in pursuit of physical beauty, even to great success, the Mirror on the Wall will always say, "Snow White lives," and this is in fact a lie--Snow White is in fact a fairy tale.  Lies cannot nourish or protect you.  Only freedom from fear, freedom from lies, can make us beautiful, and keep  us safe...Of course, some days go better than others.  Let's start with something easy:  To step into beauty, does one have to give up on losing a little weight?  No, of course not.  Only if you're sick of suffering.  Because if you cannot see that you're okay now, you won't be able to see it if you lose twenty pounds.  It's an inside job."

And, for your amusement:


"Syzygy, inexorable, pancreatic, phantasmagoria --- anyone who can
use those four words in one sentence will never have to do manual
labor." -W.P. Kinsella