We were talking about young children and the transition from childhood into the adult world. One short comment trade that caught my attention was how children have to be watched and told when to take baths or showers. Left to their own devices, children find many more important things to do with their time than get cleaned up.

That led my thinking to the middles ages, or before the industrial revolution. Watching old movies about those times leaves one with the impression that hygiene came before everything else. Impeccable clean clothes were the norm of the day, and everyone had many changes of clothes. Right after clothing the impression that bathing was a number one priority of everyone no matter their status in the particular society in which they lived.

Westerns are pretty much the same. People are always clean and neat, and must spend a lot of time grooming themselves because rarely do you see a hair out of place. Westerns to their credit usually keep their characters in the same clothes unless there was a reason they changed them, perhaps someone held them up at gunpoint and took their clothes.

The most recent King Kong movie was a let down in the clothing and grooming department. People on a lost island with the heroine taken by Kong, and hauled through miles and miles of jungle. A few animal fights ensue along the way, yet barely a wrinkle appears on her clothing. Facial dirt was applied with the care of a makeup artist.

As children grow into adults, it is at times almost impossible to have them clean themselves completely. When they take their shower, they skip the soap. When they actually use soap, shampoo never touches their scalp.

Over months Teens start to notice that the other sex. Suddenly clean is the word of the day. Spotless clothing is a requirement. Having “The Look” or something close to it is mandatory. While no one actually knows what having the look is good for, everyone in that age group wants it.

Clothes and accessories are really nothing more than clothes and accessories. If you want to live in a particular circle where clothes and having the right look is everything, clothes and accessories are everything. You are judged, moved up, and moved back down again, accepted or shunned by your peer group solely on how you look.

If you are not part of, “The Look” group, how you look matters, but not as much as what you are as a package. If you are a sharp dresser and have some personality going for you, life can be pretty good if you are smart about how you manage your life. If you are a little more to the average group, life is still pretty good.

If you can’t manage looking somewhat pleasing, life can be painful. Some people are born with problems they can not fix. They are too short, too tall and gangly, considered too big, too ugly, too odd, or too slow.

These people do not quite make the average for whatever reason. They only fit in if you allow them too fit in. When you see someone who is not quite right what is your first reaction? Do you internally gasp and think how wrong they are because they are any number of things that makes them less than acceptable? Or do you see another human being who is trying to live life the same as you are?

I fear at times I am too different. I normally see another human being with their own troubles and their own ways of dealing with what occurs in their day to day life. I know these folks generally see another human being in front of them. Not someone who is placed in a grading system they made up. It is sad; some people are desperate to be recognized as being, though they expect rejection from the encounter.

Do you know your uncontrolled expression is immediate feedback about what you think about to the person appearing in front of you? Do you see a person, or do you see someone who is not as good as yourself because they will never be able to have “The Look”, or even come close to it?