Sorry Chat Line Mix Up ! (Warwick online)

Sorry about a misfire . You were so close to eavesdropping on

    a my scandalous private life , which would have exposed me as the

    Uriah Heep of Rhode Island.

         I was composing my thoughts on the nature of physical beauty,

    inspired by those lovely  young faces I saw on the front page of

    the Warwick Beacon yesterday.

         This morning  I read : " becoming obese is a normal response to

    the American environment ".

            Must ordinary people be highly motivated to stay attractively

    thin ? Why do most married people rapidly put on the pounds, the men

    with beer bellies by the time they are 30 and the women at about the

    same age with an often irreversible matronly look ?

          I wonder if the real reason besides the "  American environment "

    is that all " romantic " feelings are dead in them, long before middle

    age. I remember  the character " Rabbit " in an John Updike novel thinking

    that his wife  Janet looked old at age 24 .

           Is being fat a way of telling the world : " I don't care anymore ! " ?

        If these  people tending to obesity  would just WALK a half hour a

    day , they would have their 18 year old body back in two years.

        The philosophy of Self -Esteem nowadays encourages us merely

     to accept  or sometimes even to love our imperfections. It does not

    challenge us to be our best physically and intellectually.

         Quite often there is a mental torpor associated with obesity.

       The ancient Greeks wisely preached the ideal of " a sound mind in

    a sound body. "

           At least 99% of the obese people out there can get back into

    fairly good shape if they have the WILL.

        Even if BEAUTY is just VANITY, then so is every other pleasant

    thing in the world. Indifference to beauty is a sin against life !