Around a million years ago, when my second youngest child was not quite five, I bought a house. Today, that child is nearing twenty two years of age. It doesn’t take a math major to figure out what we’re talking about in terms of time. It was a little less than sixteen years ago, that I came to live here.
Part of the process of deciding where we would live, was the quite low cost of the house.
Another pretty major factor though, was the elementary school in the next block.
It was of fairly modern construction, was clean of any real defacement, and reasonably pleasant to look at.
If I’d known then, what I know now though, I would never have found myself in this neighborhood.
My child attended that school from—as I recall—first grade, going to another nearby one for kindergarten. I can’t recollect the year the kid left that school, but I remember to this day, quite clearly why that occurred.
The fact is, the school was horrible. I expect I’ll have to do a great deal of any public school’s job in teaching and dealing with the general understanding of my child. That particular school though, had quite literally, a negative effect on our little student.
The teacher on whom the young one was expected to rely, couldn’t write a simple sentence in English without errors.
Things got better for a time, because of one of the local charter schools. Then they fell into a money trap, in which they allowed themselves to be sweet-talked by local government, into taking funds. At that point, they were hooked.
Their ability to teach as they saw fit, slowly went by the wayside. They already had to teach what the local school district dictated to a large degree. After taking those dollars though, any pretense quickly went away. From that point on, they did the school district’s bidding.
Keeping the story short, from then, we went from a reasonably able middle-school, to an (in my opinion, the child in question would sharply disagree) absolutely abysmal high school.
By that point the die was cast—the damage was done.
The intent of all of this though is that in all but one case, the schools in question appeared relatively modern, unscarred, and largely unscathed by any kind of decay.
What happened, and was experienced inside those supposedly hallowed halls, is entirely another thing.
For a large part, I can claim major malfeasance. That said, virtually nobody involved in the system, would be willing to accept or acknowledge that fact.
The important lesson here? The outside of each school bar one, had a pretty pleasant appearance. The inside, in most cases, was as close as one can get, to rotten to the core.
This to me, is the potential picture one might just as likely paint when talking about people, as discussing schools or other places.
The outside may be pleasant—even striking—to see. What’s on the inside though, may be more than horrible.
That’s true whether the outside is as plain as any building (or face, or body) may be, as when it’s adorned with various things, designed to make it seem more attractive.
For people, it can be things as simple as hair styles, or as comparatively complex as tattoos, piercings or body modifications of various kinds. Whether those adornments are to make the individual seem more attractive in a natural sense or not, is pretty much beside the point.
When various kinds of surgeries, not intended to promote health (which many questionably, and some may well, do), hormone treatments and other drugs are concerned, not only do they not change that which lives within, but they potentially harm the physical person.
The fact is, whether the thing done qualifies as a medical procedure or not, the more invasive it is, the greater the possibility for various ill effects.
The sad reality of this is, all of the sundry things one might to to one’s outward appearance, do not one iota, to change the person within. Rather, the perception of self before and after, is the thing causing the effect.
The person is still the person, all changes made aside.
As I’ve already indicated, when you’re ill, or suffering in some way, it can be understandable to allow various kinds of procedures to correct that. Where they may, or may not, work as advertised, at least the intent isn’t to slip into a disguise, but to make some aspect of a person’s life more bearable.
If you choose to accept there’s a spiritual being (and frankly, even if you decide to deny that fact), there’s little doubt changing the outside of yourself will affect that as well, again, via a change in perspective more than anything else.
That’s obviously also highly likely where the psychological, mental and emotional person’s concerned. In case you’re mistakenly assuming, I count the changes that occur, to be largely positive, allow me to clarify; for the most part, they’re not.
A good many people have suffered what may be termed “buyer’s remorse” after having made changes to themselves, and far too often, the changes in question can at best, only be partially undone.
At times, it’s virtually impossible to even begin to roll back the modifications made.
Still not convinced making more or less permanent changes to one’s outside for the purposes of trying to improve appearance alone is likely not beneficial?
Let me add another log on the fire. Each person has a different biochemical makeup. Something that has little undesired effect on one, may literally be deadly to another. Further, the newer a given “modification,” the greater will be the chance, that all potential effects are not yet known. And it’s not just biochemistry that may make the difference, but a whole host of factors, some of which are more or less unknown.
So if you’re thinking about changing the physical you, you might come to the conclusion from what I’m saying, that the potential drawbacks are too great. If that isn’t the case, consider this. What the physical you shows the World is not necessarily anything like what can be found inside. Of course, this is as true for others as for you. Like those schools mentioned earlier in this work, one ought not judge the proverbial book by its cover.
Thanks for reading, and may your time be good.