A few weeks ago there was a worldwide craze of creating a 3d emoji of oneself and posting them online..

I saw many friends do them. They were cute and surprisingly accurate. They required facial recognition software on the advertised app that measured and recorded skin color, eyes, cheek structure, hair color, mouth contours etc.

I have used other 2d apps in the past…but then I saw my wife’s emoji and had a thought…
The pictogram was missing lots of features of aging, of pain, of suffering, of joys… tiny wrinkles from stress were missing, eyes had no dark circles… hair colors were al one color…and so on.. the artificial picture was not accurate..

I looked at lots of friends pics and compared them to what they looked liked in their reality pictures… same issue.

These cute designed pictures was devoid of experiences and we were creating these digital versions that had no soul…what happened to those late nights studying for a test that got us that job.. or the wrinkles of stress from worrying about our kids, or the tanned skin from working late outside or the sagging eyes from crying when we were emotional..

Poof gone with a touch of a button

No matter what app we use.. the authenticity of who we are is defined by our exposure to those life’s experiences and cannot be hidden or brushed away by computers or by our minds…

Each experience has shaped us to become who we are in this moment … looking back at many of her experiences, I remember them vividly and was proud to be part of many of them that created who she is today

Aging is not a case of vanity run amok.. it is a collection of cherished moments and we cannot photoshop them away..

When we Own every part of our bodies as they are and see the stories they hold especially our faces (even if we compare them from childhood to present ), they tell a tale of our life on this planet…

be proud of it I say… I am.. regardless of my lack of hair, glasses, white haired beard, dark circles… i love it all
……………
I love you