the_fantastic_ms_fox (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_fantastic_ms_fox) wrote2007-02-11 12:09 am
the_fantastic_ms_fox) wrote2007-02-11 12:09 am
Entry tags:
Better living through science, and a better life through self-examination
I went to see the laser hair removal people.
I gotta say, this laser business is cool: you wear goggles with the same salmon colour as the dress I'm in (more on this later), and they put the tip about five centimeters from your skin. Then there are two simultaneousish flashes on your skin: one's the colour of frost, 'cause that's what it is - a wee patch of frost forming as a jet sprays coolant on your skin - and the other is about the same shade as sunset. Or at least this is what the goggles let through - I imagine that if you weren't wearing them, it'd be none too good for your eyes.
Anyhow, the hairs on your skin shrivel and let off a puff of smoke which smells, unsurprisingly, like burnt hair. And your skin feels all tingly - or at least mine does: other people say, "your skin feels all FUCK THAT HURTS!" but it doesn't seem to bother me; but neither does electrolysis, nor do I bruise easily come to think of it.
What's impressive is that all this happens in about seven deciseconds.
All the little coloured hairs are curled up, and should fall out in a couple of days, then stay dead for four weeks, then come back lighter and thinner or not at all.
If I'm satisfied, I go back for a full run, instead of little test patches.
The dress. Right. Like I said: salmon-coloured. I found on SFP!RG's shelf of reciprocity - where you can ditch old stuff that someone'll probably want and pick up the same from others. It fits. I'm wearing it, but have the curtains drawn. Am I actually scared of some sort of negative reaction and subsequent violence, or is there something else going on here? Screw rhetoricial questions: there is something else going on here, and that's a deeply rooted fear of ostracism. I realized this was a bit silly when I was afraid to dress funny even when no-one was watching. This behaviour is silly; the underlying fear of ostracism is most definitely not.
Ostracism isn't the worse thing that you can do to a person, but it's pretty bad. Consider: isolated people go crazy, and people will do really stupid shit to be accepted. So we obviously need an accepting social environment (also known as friendship and love), not in the same way we need food, but in a similar way to how we need nutritious food.
The really fucked up thing is that our society doesn't get this. It forgets that we are both an individualistic and collectivist (and subindividualistic, but that's another story) species and concludes that social contact is a luxury (and that social management is either unconscious or an oxymoron). Therefore it sees nothing wrong with encouraging a social system where we are raised to fear the scorn of jocks and cheerleaders, and hence, to fear being anything other than mediocre - it's not like we're being threatened with violence is it?
Actually, I remember preferring the violence, I think it was not so much because at least I knew how to kick whereas responding to even jovial taunting still eludes me, but because it made sense as a form of unfair externally-inflicted punsihment. The pain was not a reflection of some failing in myself - it was someone else being an asshole. Not so with being hated, which we often blame on ourselves - soon we learn to take our turn and surveil and hate each-other and ourselves, and fear the salmon dress even whon no-one is watching.
Not a good system: it needs a sociological mechanic. And a nice dress.
Also: I'm watching Firefly and coming up with crazy aesthetic ideas. More on this later.
I gotta say, this laser business is cool: you wear goggles with the same salmon colour as the dress I'm in (more on this later), and they put the tip about five centimeters from your skin. Then there are two simultaneousish flashes on your skin: one's the colour of frost, 'cause that's what it is - a wee patch of frost forming as a jet sprays coolant on your skin - and the other is about the same shade as sunset. Or at least this is what the goggles let through - I imagine that if you weren't wearing them, it'd be none too good for your eyes.
Anyhow, the hairs on your skin shrivel and let off a puff of smoke which smells, unsurprisingly, like burnt hair. And your skin feels all tingly - or at least mine does: other people say, "your skin feels all FUCK THAT HURTS!" but it doesn't seem to bother me; but neither does electrolysis, nor do I bruise easily come to think of it.
What's impressive is that all this happens in about seven deciseconds.
All the little coloured hairs are curled up, and should fall out in a couple of days, then stay dead for four weeks, then come back lighter and thinner or not at all.
If I'm satisfied, I go back for a full run, instead of little test patches.
The dress. Right. Like I said: salmon-coloured. I found on SFP!RG's shelf of reciprocity - where you can ditch old stuff that someone'll probably want and pick up the same from others. It fits. I'm wearing it, but have the curtains drawn. Am I actually scared of some sort of negative reaction and subsequent violence, or is there something else going on here? Screw rhetoricial questions: there is something else going on here, and that's a deeply rooted fear of ostracism. I realized this was a bit silly when I was afraid to dress funny even when no-one was watching. This behaviour is silly; the underlying fear of ostracism is most definitely not.
Ostracism isn't the worse thing that you can do to a person, but it's pretty bad. Consider: isolated people go crazy, and people will do really stupid shit to be accepted. So we obviously need an accepting social environment (also known as friendship and love), not in the same way we need food, but in a similar way to how we need nutritious food.
The really fucked up thing is that our society doesn't get this. It forgets that we are both an individualistic and collectivist (and subindividualistic, but that's another story) species and concludes that social contact is a luxury (and that social management is either unconscious or an oxymoron). Therefore it sees nothing wrong with encouraging a social system where we are raised to fear the scorn of jocks and cheerleaders, and hence, to fear being anything other than mediocre - it's not like we're being threatened with violence is it?
Actually, I remember preferring the violence, I think it was not so much because at least I knew how to kick whereas responding to even jovial taunting still eludes me, but because it made sense as a form of unfair externally-inflicted punsihment. The pain was not a reflection of some failing in myself - it was someone else being an asshole. Not so with being hated, which we often blame on ourselves - soon we learn to take our turn and surveil and hate each-other and ourselves, and fear the salmon dress even whon no-one is watching.
Not a good system: it needs a sociological mechanic. And a nice dress.
Also: I'm watching Firefly and coming up with crazy aesthetic ideas. More on this later.
no subject
Anyhow, I'm not sure if you would consider me one of those people (who you trust), but I don't really mind what clothes people wear as long as they don't contain messages of hate, and I would be happy to be there anytime you'd like. Self acceptance and understanding is a beautiful and humbling process whether one is going through it themselves or seeing someone else go through it.
no subject
no subject
I explain my personal reasonings, usually spurious, or silly, or whimsical, as if they are perfectly reasonable, at least if I am on speaking terms with the individual in question, and usually I get some "Oh, well, I guess it makes you happy then...." type answers.
Somehow I don't think the scale is the same as what you're talking about here, but I agree with the social commentary about acceptance and ostracization, or why would I bother with the explanations, though? Largely, I don't socialize with these people and don't desire to, so why should I care what they think? and yet I do.
Do what you want and damn the consequences seems fine in principle, and I feel like at times I really should, but is exceedingly difficult. My friends have gotten used to me turning up at house parties in all kinds of anachronistic and contradictory costumes and now say "oh, that's Jenn, she does that" but then, my friends Larp, so they have a wider range of accepted behavior than many, then again, maybe that's why we're friends.
I agree with Vanessa's suggestion. Try it, maybe? I know it helps, as to a lesser extent, I've done it myself. Not on the same scale at all, I know, but maybe a step...