Breathe
By Areli Paz
Youth: divine treasure, literally, especially because nothing hurts, nothing creaks, nothing affects you with after-effects of days or weeks. Gravity keeps everything in its place.
Old age: For these times of chaos, reaching old age is already a privilege, of course, everything crunches, everything affects you with after-effects of days and weeks. Gravity is a continuous battle.
Surrender: Act of kindness to oneself.
Of course, when you are young you have brighter, smoother, tougher skin and you recover quickly from daily wear and tear, be it work or partying.
Stress goes through the funnel of valemadrism, the future seems distant and the wisdom of "I believe, I think, I feel" is challenging.
Maintaining youth is a millenary idea, all cultures have left traces of how they could preserve strength, fertility and power over their body.
The elixir of youth is not a slogan, it is a daily quote from men and women who fear losing their physical presence in front of the mirror. Their security or recognition in youth.
Sometimes seeing our photos when we were young is scary, but "why did they let me do my hair like that, why did I dress like that, and those cheeks, what was I thinking to go out in the street like that", it's not me, it's humanity, the past is scary but not because of the facts but because our face and body reveal the inevitable passage of time.
Today, the anti-aging industry is valued at more than $42 billion and is estimated to total nearly $70 billion annually by 2032, according to the latest data from Fortune Business Insights.
Cosmetics, facials, body treatments, exercises, clothes, food, it is a frantic struggle that some live more than others. Respectable and understandable in a world where we are told that youth is good and old age is bad, where advertising competes for beauty at ages when there is nothing more to wear than water, deodorant and soap.
Demi Moore's defeat at the Oscars opened the door to mockery, criticism and reflection, because that is what cinema is, a situation and history that sometimes goes unnoticed and that over time ends up explaining to us much of what we miss planning uncertain futures.
Mockery because with the triumph of a young woman of 25 over a mature woman of 60, they fulfill the true story of The Substance. A scathing critique of how the entertainment industry has many women and men living in silence an eternal anguish not to lose the beauty, firmness and freshness of the skin to remain in force.
Criticism, because some people believe that the film industry does not value the story of women "of age" and prefers to give roles and stories to young women. This also permeates in real life.
Many say: "It is much more complicated to find a job because of your age, when your competition is 20 years younger. No, old women, (says a 42 year old) nobody wants us unless you invest in maintaining your youth and dynamism, otherwise you are condemned to oblivion. What happened to Demi happens a lot, whoever you are, whatever you do, if there is a younger one, they don't even look at you, experience doesn't count anymore, even less if they have to pay you more", all these voices are from professional and successful women, and even so, they are also afraid to look at themselves in the mirror and recognize that time has passed.
Micey Madison won for outstanding actress, but we must also be sympathetic to the fact that the academy loves political junctures, even the host made reference to the fact that Anora did have the courage to confront the Russian oligarch. A thorny issue in the world today in the face of a Trump surrendered to Putin.
It all has to do with everything, much more so when this conversation moves from the screen to real life, where young and mature women continue to advocate and search for a place.
