neal 'the dude' junger.

The notion of staying young has been complicated by individuals and conglomerates for decades. It's big business for many and the only worry for some. People care about the impression their exterior provides, they are concerned about changing their genetic make-up as if it is the only aspect of their being that others care for. People are lost in their skin, scared of what they see and desperate to maintain the youthful looks they forget to appreciate when they had them. I understand their fight for the past at times, but most of the time I remain bemused by the small-mindedness of their fight, I remain confused by their desire to clasp at the impossible past and forget about the moment.

This pandemic of what beauty should be upsets me though. For unless you are willing to accept who you are, learn who you are and become best friends with who you are as a person, you will never be happy with who you, no matter how good you look for your age. You may like what you see, but you're ignoring the person who wears that skin or lives behind those clothes.

What we have on the outside was won in a lottery, and I mean won. You can change what you have by hardwork, lose weight and gain abs, d squats and earn an ass, and with that will come confidence and pride, a confidence and pride that cannot be obtained by surgery or needles. Surgery and needles only serve to exasperate. They lead to further self-conscious doubt that serves your worries on beauty and nothing more. Excercise promotes a healthy mind as much as a healthy body.

But what you have on the outside cannot be chosen and nor should it, it is indivduality, but ultimately it is not what you will be remembered for and nor what you should be remembered for. Youth will escape from our looks, but it won't fade from who we are. We'll always be young souls wondering what the hell happened when we catch our reflection. This is where youth lies. Inside. It's what shines through in our personality and can be seen when we look in another's eyes. It's what we do with our lives instead of how we decide to grasp at the past.

Choosing what we do with who we are is what defines us.

I am only twenty-five, but already I have times of fear. I fear my limitations, what I am uncapable of now and what it is too late too start doing. There is so much I still want to learn and still so much I want to master, but often I conceded to the belief that it is already too late for me, I didn't start when I was three and a half years old so i don't have a chance, or I haven't done that since I was eighteen, and thus it is too late. At times I concentrate on what it is too late to do instead of what I am still able to learn. I mean I want to learn how to play the guitar. I want to perfect my abilities as a writer. I want to expand my knowledge on things I wasn't interested on in school, like science. I want to better my skills on a skateboard. I want to understand who I am. I want to perfect my attitude and I want to be best friends with me because i'm stuck with him.

What Neal Unger has taught me is that it is never too late for anything. You may look older and even feel older, but to concede to such beliefs is a conscious decision, thus it is a conscious decision to ignore these concepts too. What we want to do is a choicewe can make, not a dictation made by magazines or onlookers. I want to be everything I can and do what I have told myself it is too late to do. That's that. To me, Neal Unger is more than just a sixty-year old man who refuses to accept his age. He is more than just a sixty year old hippy that wants to skateboard. He is more than just senile, he's senile enough to go out and grab it, he's senile enough to do it, he's senile enough to inspire. Neal Unger is a man who wants to learn who he is. he is a man who wants to understand the way his mind works and revel in what he is still able to learn. He is able to defy what society says he should be limited to and what people say he should be crippled by, and that is inspiring at its core, he does it for him, not others. He wants to expand his understanding of himself, and that is something I hope everyone can relate to. I certainly can.