reading response: Pretties

     Iv Currently started to re-read the book "Pretty's" by Scott Westerfield. So basically Pretty's is about this future-istic world where our society becomes even more vain and takes plastic surgery to an even farther extent. Recreating yourself becomes the point of life, and a persons only purpose in life is to be beautiful.
     I appreciate Scott Westerfields idea of creating a dystopia based on a vanity dilema our society is facing today. The problem with people in general, is that we as people think we're right, and normal. And it's always been like this, each generation thinks their superior and hip, but after a while they'll just get laughed at or frowned upon in the future by a new generation of young people. Hundreds of years ago in China women would bind their feet, and we look at this with disgust now, but back then of course they thought what they were doing was right. They thought it was necessary, why else would they go through that pain?  Generation, after generation new "fads" become popular, it can be styles in history so far away from our world, that may seem more extreme like, foot binding, corsets and toxins for whitening the face. Or it can be be more recent trends like sagging pants, and the obsession Americans go through over weight loss. There are 60% of Americans who are obese, and I think that it would be normal for them to want to lose weight, but I think our society has a strange perception on what size is considered beautiful. And people of healthy sizes are striving to be thinner trying to reach a place they'll never be, and doing vile things to their body which leads to eating disorders and mental illnesses. I really do believe that as time goes by, the future generations are going to look back at us and frown.
     But how do we realize what we're really doing to ourselves? I think that writing and reflection is the key. When Scott Westerfield wrote his dystopia Prettys, all he had to do was set his story into the future and just exaggerate what's happening to us now in order to get the attention. Now, reflecting on it we can understand what us as a society are doing.
      Looking back at history can also help us fix our mistakes because history does repeat itself. The answer is to just look upon a different society and judge them. Because naturally we don't judge ourselves, but realizing things about others can make us think about ourselves. And its ignorant not to realize that we're wrong. We are only human, so obviously we can't be perfect and fads will come and go. Small fads like bobs, perms or even sagging pants aren't much of an issue, but when we do something thats physically going against nature and hurting our bodies we're just destroying ourselves over vanity. Vanity is a normal trait, but it shouldn't be taken to the extent where your physically hurting yourself . I think that not only do we have to observe the past, but we can question the present. Questioning the world around us is one of the smartest things we can do, in order to realize what we're doing wrong we have to start with questioning, and create our own philosiphies about the world.

     I thought the most helpful thing that Patrick did to me was explain how I felt about the facts I was listing (and adding more previous fads).  Because of writing about how I felt about weight loss, I was able to finish stronger, connect to the world, and explain when vanity goes to far.