Before and After

We are obscessed with image.

I am not sure when substance stopped mattering more than image but it might have been with the John Kennedy/ Richard Nixon debates or when "Born Free" won the best song Oscar over "Georgie Girl". Perhaps those events and other like them only maimed the importance of substance and it was the song "Feelings" that killed it.

Yesterday, Labor Day - 2007, Deb and I were at a little family gathering with my sister and her family and some hanger's-on when a shirt-tail relative made a huge deal over my wife's appearance.

"I didn't even recognize you!" he said, "You look great! How did you manage to lose the weight?"... yada yada.

Now, I don't want to diminsh Deb's accomplishment. She has lost a number of pounds and is feeling more energy, etc. etc. But aside from that, she is the same beautiful, gentle, intelligent, witty, shy woman she has been at least since I have known her. I can't recall this particulr man ever making any big deal over her before. It is a little pathetic.

It is pathetic because he has known my wife for decades but knew very little, if anything, about her and it's the "about her" that's so important.

Deb told me later that he fawned so much that she began feeling uncomfortable and found another room to hide in.

In the interest of full disclosure, this entry opened with my personal "before and after" photos. I listed the "after" first because that's who I am, doing one of the things I enjoy doing most. The "before" shot was me when I was an arrogant, 19 year-old posing for a passport photo (I was ordered not to smile, by the way). When that photo was snapped I cared a lot about image because I had little substance of my own.

I remember a quote attributed to Claudette Colbert. She said "It matters more what's in a woman's face than what's on it." She had a pretty good face when she said this, so maybe it was an easy pronouncement for her, but is an important one nonetheless.

As for me, I think I would have no friends if I selected them based on their image and they would certainly not have chosen me if that were the only criteria. My friends are all of important substance. They use their minds, they are devoted to causes, they are deeply committed and from them I learn something at almose every contact. They all have something important "in" their faces.

I once concluded that ugly people who are kind get better looking and pretty people who are mean, get uglier. While there isn't any hard data to support the conclusion, I think, anecdotally, it is correct. What do you think?