Impossible Standards


Carborendum
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With God, nothing is impossible.

We often hear about beauty and other physical standards that "society" is pushing on us.  We hear they are "impossible" standards.  So, trying to achieve it is damaging to the psyche.  I'd like to explore this a bit in both the social and spiritual arenas.

If women (for example) are looking at Barbie or Pamela Anderson (or whoever represents the "it" girl's impossible physique these days) as the model of what to achieve, I believe that is a mistake because the human body was never meant to be like that.  The idea of perfection has changed from the true intent of (read: God's ideal of) our bodies.

In personal improvement programs we tend to talk all around something that a specific Venn diagram seems to model.

  • Our ideals
  • Our current state
  • Absolute Truth

When two of these circles overlap, we find some level of peace.  When all three overlap completely, that is perfection.  Harmony.  Peace.  Many standards today omit the third circle.  "Absolute Truth" has been replaced by "societal standards" which change with the wind daily.  That was so five minutes ago!

Society is beginning to recognize this but they are running the wrong direction.  Instead of saying,"I wonder what the true ideal is."  They instead say,"There is NO absolute standard." 

The trap there is that standards will always exist.  Psychologically & spiritually, we NEED standards.  We NEED goals.  What we're really saying is, "If there is NO standard, then I AM the standard."  Look at the bold and see if you see the danger with that ideology (or idolatry).  The standard of ONE.  The culture of ONE.  The morals of ONE.

With my opening statement in this post, I intended a double meaning.  Yes, God can do all things.  But it also means that He will not try us beyond that which we are able.  He will provide a way.  One way he does this is that he gives us goals that are based on Truth.  He gives us goals that are attainable.  He will not ask us to do something impossible.  If it is impossible for us, He will provide a divine method of achieving it (e.g. The Atonement of Christ).

Pres Nelson's remarks sum this up beautifully.

Quote

Now, you may be thinking this sounds more like hard spiritual work than rest. But here is the grand truth: while the world insists that power, possessions, popularity, and pleasures of the flesh bring happiness, they do not! They cannot! What they do produce is nothing but a hollow substitute for “the blessed and happy state of those [who] keep the commandments of God.”

The truth is that it is much more exhausting to seek happiness where you can never find it! However, when you yoke yourself to Jesus Christ and do the spiritual work required to overcome the world, He, and He alone, does have the power to lift you above the pull of this world.

  -- Russel M. Nelson (Overcome the World and Find Rest, Oct 2022 General Conference)

As we align our ideals with the Lord's Truth, we start on the covenant path.  As our deeds begin to reflect the same ideals, then we fine lasting peace.

While man sets impossible standards which so many go through absurd measures to achieve, the Lord offers us His strength to follow a path of peace.  While no standard is easy to achieve, it is still achievable.  And His standards will provide lasting happiness.

Edited by Carborendum
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6 hours ago, Carborendum said:

The trap there is that standards will always exist.  Psychologically & spiritually, we NEED standards.  We NEED goals.  What we're really saying is, "If there is NO standard, then I AM the standard."  Look at the bold and see if you see the danger with that ideology (or idolatry).  The standard of ONE.  The culture of ONE.  The morals of ONE.

 

Take a look at the attached image below. This is the cover for a subscriber-exclusive issue of a licensed "G. I. Joe" comic done by IDW Publishing a few years ago. Yes, subscriber-exclusive, as in "it should be a premium product to make someone want to have an active subscription". 

Instead, most everyone I've shown it to has quickly picked out the numerous art mistakes in the image, including the left-hand character's left leg being at an unnatural angle, the middle figure's right calf facing the wrong way, the the right-hand figure's belt pouches being visible over her parka. Quite a few people with actual military service time (this being G. I. Joe) noted that the left-hand character was visibly obese to the point that they questioned how she would realistically pass a physical fitness evaluation of the kind that members of a special forces unit would have to periodically undergo. 

There's also, to put it bluntly, an ugliness to the overall design. Detail is sparse, but done with heavy lines when it is done. This makes the whole thing uncomfortably dark and grim-looking, especially with the expressions on the faces of the middle and right-hand figures. That the shading is off isn't helping matters any, as the shadows are coming from inconsistent angles as to suggest multiple light sources. 

By any stretch of the imagination, this artwork should have been rejected. 

Instead, not only was it accepted by editorial, anyone who dared to comment on it risked being accused of bigotry, especially since the left-hand figure is Pacific Islander.

...Never mind the fact that the original version of the character, as released by Hasbro in 1990, was a buff, bald white guy. 

Writer Aubrey Sitterson would later admit that he was not a fan of the franchise and so had no respect for it when he was put on the book, and as a result the original Hasbro-official version of the character, an anti-tank trooper named "Salvo" who realistically would be ripped given the heavy weaponry he carries, offended him; in his own words, he felt that the character design had an "alt-right vibe" which he needed to "re-contextualize" for the modern day. Thus, he remade the character into an obese female racial minority, the exact opposite of the original design. 

Sitterson was already on thin ice with Hasbro as it was for insensitive remarks he'd made about 9/11, and so they ordered IDW to "re-contextualize" Sitterson out into the unemployment line for this admission. 

But the incident illustrates an ongoing concern within the US comic book industry, that modern writers and artists working for the mainstream publishers seem to be increasingly offended by characters who are designed to meet traditional norms of health, beauty, and fitness and as a result take any opportunity possible to make them anything but these traditional norms. 

Basically, they insist on making everything ugly in appearance, and what they can't they make ugly through inferior and unprofessional artwork and writing. 

GIJOE_ONGO2016_05-cvrSUBA.jpg

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4 hours ago, Ironhold said:

Instead, not only was it accepted by editorial, anyone who dared to comment on it risked being accused of bigotry, especially since the left-hand figure is Pacific Islander.

Really good example.

Just because the impossible (but good) standard is impossible, doesn't mean doing this ^^^ is the correct way to go.  There IS A STANDARD that we should be striving for in both spiritual and temporal goals.  And that is what they forget.  

It then becomes hypocrisy.   They say "you can't hold someone to that standard." But then they decide on another standard that everyone has to bow down to or get cancelled for criticizing.

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