Love, Looks, and Hair Loss - How iPods are really mePods

We are a shallow society. Remember the first iPod and how clunky and unwieldy it was? 

Oh look at me! I liked myself before it was cool!

I mean, they were the fat ladies that were considered beautiful in the Renaissance period because of their girth and pale, pasty skin symbolizing wealth, status, and general coolness level. I had the original iPod, way before I knew what to do with it, and let me tell you, all I wanted was an mp3 - something small, portable, and where I could stick music from 4 CDs on. I didn't know what to do with 500 gbs -  I was 15!

Anyway, looking at the iPods (and we all know iPods are just a metaphor), they're thinner, sleeker, more portable, more connected, more intuitive, easier to talk to, higher quality, etc. They're the perfect companion! Feeling lonely? Oh an app to talk to strangers. Feeling hungry? Oh an app to find the best closest restaurant. 

So what do you do when an original iPod, so to say, walks into a bar? It's obviously different, bigger, thicker, slower, no colour display, limited functions. We tend to scoff at the history of the evolution, especially when compared to what's available nowadays, and here is where the metaphor breaks down.

Humans are not just stepping stones for other humans to look better - not a single one of us should be a historical artifact. Yet people who aren't skinny, aren't a certain amount of tan, who've got hair where they shouldn't have and don't have it where they should, people who aren't the right kind of funny or have the right kind of talent, or anything, really, don't they often get overlooked?

I work with women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Hell, I probably have it. PCOS isn't a fun thing to deal with as you have to deal with something that hits you right in your femininity balls. PCOS is a complex endocrine disorder which basically, in the end, increases your risk for developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk. Most importantly (per se), women with PCOS produce extra male hormone resulting in male pattern hair growth/loss, acne, weight gain/difficulty in weight loss, and making it harder to get pregnant.

So how does a hairy, pimpled, fat girl fit into society? Of course, I realize I'm being reductive, but the point is society is reductive. You have an image in your mind now - how are you reacting to it? Funny, isn't it, the biases we carry, and I carry a wackload of them myself. It's hard to realize that she's a complete person too - that she has wants, desires, ideas, loves all the same. That it's not HER fault that she was born this way, and the fact that I even had to put down "fault" in that sentence speaks volumes. If humans are not stepping stones, then they are an end to themselves - value is intrinsic, this at least we should learn.

I'm not saying you need to fall in love with everybody, but at least give them the chance to prove their worth, whether they are the original iPod or the iPhone 4GS as everything has their use, some more efficient and suited than others. While some of you may scoff at the single function use of the original, wondering why somebody would choose that over the iPhone, well, it's kind of funny but I still refuse to get a smartphone, preferring to lug around my archaic caveman rockphone.

One person's smartphone is another person's headache.

Cheers!