Elese Coit

"Even better than the real thing" - U2

Looking out over the glistening ocean on a full moon night  when everything is clear and all you can see is miles of sky and little dots of light everywhere, set to the music of the ocean rolling against the shore...  a moment of perfection.  When I am aware of nothing except that breathing is happening and there is a sense of something larger than myself. Nothing is wrong or right.  Nothing needs changing or fixing.

So I had a strong reaction when I heard, "Yeah, did you see the moon last night, it was like a Disney movie."

It was like a Disney movie?

So apparently, I did not realize this, but Disney has this incredible capacity to take a natural phenomenon and make it 'even better'.  Enhancing the moonlight to even greater moonlit-ness.  The ability to make shimmering more shimmery. 

I am saddened by this.  Saddened that Disney is a standard bearer for what is beautiful in life, but more, I'm saddened at what it drains from us as human beings that that the natural beauty of the world somehow doesn't quite hold up to its celluloid enhanced counterpart.  It's just simply better if there are lots and lots and lots of shimmers. The way we look outside and see it, with maybe not so many shimmers, that is just a poor substitute.

Isn't this what we currently suffer from? Rampant not-good-enough-ness.  Oh, it's  good, but it can be made better.  Our bodies are good, but they could be better: a nip here, some weight loss, a bit of molding and shaping.  I remember overhearing a mother talking to her daughter about a nose job "But honey," she said, "If you know you can make it prettier, why wouldn't you?"  So, let's see... I'm fine as I am and I have everything I need but, oh I almost forgot... I could be better.   Even in self-development, the never-enough-ness is rampant too.  I know, I do it.  And I suffer because of it.

In our striving to improve, we become not only less content, but less able to see the real beauty of what is before us.  The beauty in ourselves and in others.  In fact we come to think that we can't just be us at all.   We need to be better than us. We need a bit of air-brushing.

Well maybe Disney could make us all look "Better than the real thing" but I hope not.  The real thing is just fine by me.  Warts and all.