50 sense

Today I ran to the beauty supply store to pick up my purple shampoo. You know, it's the shampoo to keep your gray hair shiny and silvery, not dull and yellow. I approached the young and attractive clerk and asked where the "gray hair shampoo " was located. I had a proud feeling that I felt absolutely no shame in my gray hair, my wrinkles, my age.

My forties have been the best decade for me. In spite of the physical changes of aging I have felt more at ease with my looks than at any other time in my life. I am proud to have gray hair and want people to see me as being the age I am. I know this is not the trend of many people my age, as they dye their gray and modify their wrinkles. We all need to feel comfortable in our own skin. For me however, I want to look the part of who I am, right now, today. I am all grown up finally.



Lines in the face, tatoos of aging.
Life is proved upon the body
Like needle jabs from a sightless machine.

The older one gets, the more one is conscious of aging. We can barely remember childhood innocence and exuberance. We are surprised by the youthful vitality and unmarked face when we see earlier photos of ourselves. When we look in the mirror, we reluctantly acknowlege the aging mask. It seems there is no escaping the marks of life.

Every experience that we have, everything that we do and think is registered upon us as surely as the steady embroidery of of a tatoo artist. But to a large degree, the pattern and picture that will emerge is up to us. If we go to a tatoo artist, it is we who select the picture. In life, it is we who select what we will become by the actions we perform. There is no reason to go through life thoughtlessly, to let accident shape us. That is like allowing oneself to be tatooed by a man with no sight. How can you help but turn old and ugly?

Whether we emerge beautiful or ugly is our sole responsibility.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao