Body Modifications Part 3.

The Big Time: Surgery.

Now this could be the most controversial of the three. Surgery does carry a certain stigma around it, and if you read what I wrote about piercings you’re probably thinking that I will be all against it. But surgery has both its goods and its bads.

Let me start with the differences between cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery, because this may surprise you but they are not the same things.

Cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery are not the same thing:

Cosmetic surgery procedures enhance a person's appearance toward some aesthetic ideal.

Cosmetic surgery is practiced by doctors from a variety of medical fields including dermatologists, facial plastic surgeons, general surgeons, gynecologists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists, plastic surgeons, as well as doctors from other fields.

Unlike cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery focuses on repairing and reconstructing abnormal structures of the body caused by birth defects, developmental abnormalities, trauma, infection, tumors or disease.

And so with those lines drawn you might be thinking that I’m just gonna say cosmetic bad, plastic good. But it’s not as simple as that, and by those definitions plastic is good, but that does not necessarily mean that cosmetic is bad though. But it isn’t, not always anyways. I do believe that surgery should be the last choice not the first one. I am a big proponent of loving the body you’re in or learning to love the body you’re in. But I also so acknowledge that it is not always possible for this to happen. And in that case I do believe that if there is nothing else that can be done, cosmetic surgery is a completely acceptable option. As I said before it shouldn’t be a first choice, but a last resort. Now I should be clear that if you think that changing your body because you think it will make someone else like you more. No, simply no. Don’t get surgery to impress someone else, because if they have a problem with your body it is not you it’s them.

See now I am not even sure if it is something that surgeons let you rush into. Because piercings can be taken out, tattoos can be removed, but surgery is not always as easily reversible and there’s no guarantee that it will turn out the way you want it to.

Think hard and embrace your quote unquote imperfections before you decide to surgically change them. Because I’d like to believe that changing your mind is more beneficial than changing your body.

Post Script: I’m sure is more research that I could do on this, but I do think this does cover the point I am trying to get across. Also I am hoping that I can keep up on regular posts. I think I am doing good so far. Wednesdays are good right?

Real versus Fake. The tree debate.

I've experienced both of these to some degree or another and feel uniquely qualified to share. So I've never actually had a live tree of my own, my family has been synthetic my whole life. But I've been to several houses, and a couple parties including one last night with a real tree.

I'm gonna start with synthetic trees because that's what I know best. Call them what you want, fake, plastic, or whatever and that might be true. Who says that has to be necessarily bad. I mean when you think about it one of these trees could last a dozen plus years or even up to a life time. So there's only one payment required, you don't have to spend money each year and you don't need to take time to pick out a tree each year. Then there's the fire risk, though when it comes to Christmas fires it is more likely that the fire will start from the electrical outlet than the tree itself, because even if the tree is considered flame retardant wood is more flammable than plastic. Then there is the issue of the mess. With any tree real or synthetic there will be some sort of mess, because the needles still fall off no matter what. Whereas the real trees you've got needles falling off all the time, not just the casual few either. Then at the end you've got a dead tree to deal with rather than a tree to just put back in its' box until next year.

Now on to real trees. And that's easily the best and simplest way to describe them. They fill your house with the real smell of evergreen tree in your house and that is something that can't be synthetically replicated by any means and it blends greatly with the other traditional scents of Christmas time. Also real trees not only look fuller but are so much fuller and shapely, giving them a very much more natural shape that synthetics haven't quite captured. From what I've heard picking out a tree as a family can be a very enjoyable Christmas tradition. Then when Christmas is over, rather than throwing out the tree if you've got a fireplace or fire pit, after all the needles have fallen off you've got the great beginnings of a fire.

They both have their pros and cons, I'm not here to make any sort of judgments on what kind of tree you should get or try and say one kind of tree is better than another. But there is one judgment I will make: if your tree isn't green, it's weird. The white trees, aluminum trees, or any other unnaturally coloured trees are just strange. I just feel like it's not right. It's just one of these things that I just don't understand. And I don't know why people do it.

Post Script: Where are you in this debate? I'd like to go for a  real tree one day, I think it would be nice to have my house smell as Christmas-ey as possible.