A friend and I were at a café. Across the road was a billboard plastered with the gorgeous face of a, obviously heavily Photoshopped, young woman.

The words “Hot Chick!” leapt at us, followed by the usual advertising of some otherwise boring product.

“The thing is,” said my friend, “people just don’t think that hot chicks will grow old.”

“I’m sure they do,” I said. “Everyone grows old. We know that!”

“Yeah, but not when you’re staring at a billboard, mesmerised by this young model. Wishing they could get into bed with her.”

I laughed. “You’re right. We don’t think such women age. We don’t realise how impermanent, how unreal beauty is.”

I won’t grow old

“It’s only skin deep, Halim. If we just imagined, say forty, fifty years ahead, we’ll see our hot chick become so aged. Perhaps our desires will just fall away!”

“Hmmm …” I mused. “So hot chicks will become elderly women.”

“Hot chicks, Halim, will become elderly women with joint problems, stomach pains, blabber infections and falling hair.”

“So hot chicks will become geriatrics?”

“Yeah, hot chicks will become geria-chicks!”

Yesterday I came across this quote:

“Both the good and the pleasant present themselves to men and prompt them into action. The yogi prefers the good to the pleasant. Others, driven by their desires, prefer the pleasant to the good and miss the very purpose of life.”

(B.K.S Iyengar)

 That reminded me of our cafe conversation.

The good versus the pleasant.

The model was indeed very pleasant. But if our minds constantly focus on the pleasant we very often miss the good.

We are offered, through corporate propaganda, a multitude of pleasant things which are possible in our lives – good food, spa treatments, fashionable clothes, gorgeous partner, fabulous vehicle and all the things made to entertain us. We can have some of them if we have the money. If we spend. And the corporations thus profit.

But how often are we offered the good?

It seems that we have to seek the good out for ourselves. It’s a more difficult path.

It’s possible that our model on the billboard may realise how unreal, illusory and impermanent life really is and, therefore, to seek out the good.

If she did, I’m sure all us men will follow! 🙂