As people age and gain more means, they can become more vulnerable to vanity. Many people believe they know what vanity is; they find it in others but seldom in themselves. And yet when asked what it is, they suddenly realize that they only have the vaguest idea about the thing.
People take a bath in the morning, brush their teeth after breakfast, and then get into their outfits. These have become rituals that everyone does before heading out to the world. It is for proper physical maintenance, and it gives them self-confidence – that they are in good order to face everyone else.
Proper clothing is necessary to protect the body from the elements. Even applying sunscreen on exposed skin has now become basic protection for health. Whatever measure is fundamentally essential for one’s wellbeing shall be taken; it is for good reason.
However, people no longer stop at just being able to do what is fundamentally essential. They have stretched their “needs” and, thus, have to do more. Having clean teeth, for example, is no longer enough; they need to have clean and pearly white teeth. Skin lotions are not only for protection from the sun; these need to give some nice scent and preferably some nice sheen too. And clothes have significantly changed its purpose, which has since flipped from comfort to style.
Vain people – and they’re quite the norm nowadays – would argue that they do what they do only in reaction to the collective mindset of the modern world. They wear perfume – because people no longer appreciate the natural sweet scent of the human person. They wear synthetic skin colors and uncomfortable-but-fashionable clothing because the world has come to dislike what’s natural with themselves.
It’s now all a show, necessitated by the desire for acknowledgement and recognition, a human frailty that infects even accomplished and intelligent people. People try so hard to come out superior to others – in a sense a delusion of personal power. Indeed, self-pride is the thing that operates almost every person alive.
This is a very sad reality… to be consumed by attention to the passing “self.” People are forgetting the value of humility, an attitude that gives them a kind of kinship and an understanding of one another and their shared true nature. Self-pride, which is an inseparable partner to vanity, can rob individuals of their sense of compassion for one another.
The process begins in youth. With bursting energies, young people tend to forget the limitedness of the human lifetime. They are haughty and indifferent to the counsel of their elders, believing instead that they know better.
The same attitude is common among older people. With their longer life experience, they also tend to believe that they know everything. Which, of course, is not true – digital technology, for one, is an area where older people are generally not so conversant in.
Young people who pride of their physical beauty will have their day of awakening after the passage of time. They will have a self-confrontation with a different, weathered-down appearance. That’s for sure.
A wise man has said: “Our bodies may be temples, but they are not for our worship. We need to steer away from the body cult mentality which tempts us to sacrifice good health for a supposedly healthy look.”
On the other hand, older people who cling on to their past glory only break their hearts. It’s like hugging a balloon. A single prick of a pin reveals its emptiness.
But then again, what is vanity? It is an inner awareness of a sense of superiority. One of its first symptoms is when the person feels that he or she is not infected with it. Another symptom is an increase in one’s awareness of vanity in others.
In the end, this frailty is part of human nature. It is everyone’s great challenge to tame it. To obsess about things that don’t last or don’t ultimately matter… that is vanity.