The first time he dropped the acronym he was met with a blank look. "A what?"
"You know, a Sensitive New-Age Guy"
"Ohhh...Sorry, I hadn't realised"
What I do realise now is that he's right on the money. Modern Western society is getting more new-age by the day. We're softer and more vulnerable, and one of the areas I feel has been most affected by this transition is the health and wellbeing industry.
In medieval times, medicine was very simple. Get an infection in your leg and you'd be likely to lose it. Amputation for what is now a minor complaint was commonplace, and the tools used to carry out the surgery would be more suited to engineering a tank. Diets consisted of whatever could be found, grown or slaughtered, diets and supplements were unheard of, and plenty of people were killed by the common cold. Diagnosis was also a touch more primitive than nowadays; a person was diagnosed with diabetes if their urine tasted sugary. That's right, TASTED (as someone employed in the pathology industry, I'm relieved that this is no longer the test method used).
Now the only limitation on the level of medical intervention is the contents of ones wallet. Hundreds of dollars are easily spent on vitamins, minerals, beauty therapies, kinesiology, psychology, cosmetology, you name it and it's available. The clinical benefit of many of these is unproven, yet plenty of people are queueing to throw their hard-earned cash into the registers of health food stores and 21st century witch-doctors.
Lifestyle activities have become very new-age also. Sports requiring thousands of dollars of specialist equipment have become the rage. Mountain-biking, kite-surfing, off-roading and golf are all examples of how modern society try to leave the 9-to-5 mentality behind on the weekends.
I am extremely guilty of jumping on the new-age bandwagon. Most recently, I have made apologies to my bum and joined the hordes of Sunday cyclists, winding their way through the suburbs and countryside. I cemented this past-time by registering for a 200 km charity ride in October this year. Over two days I will ride through the rolling hills of Victoria's wine country, the Yarra Valley. This is a far cry from the side of myself that swears at cyclists who take up the road while I attempt to weave around them on four wheels, and the side of myself that would exclaim with amazement whenever I see a cyclist battling a strong headwind up an enormous hill on the open road.
Commercialism has caused the male gender to change phenomenally, and so-called 'SNAGS' are now the norm. Gone are the days of the chauvinist pig who dragged a woman around by her hair; enter the clean-shaven, cocktail-drinking, suit-wearing metrosexual who routinely wears fragrance, skinny jeans and pointy shoes. Like so many of my female counterparts, I swoon at the sight of my fella in a collared shirt, and I would be the first to admit that Dan Carter's Jockeys are the finest of eye candy:
Undies...
So what is happening to our lifestyle and dress-sense? In some ways it has been refined, yet in others it seems like such a facade. Put a potty-mouth alcoholic in a collared shirt and he is allowed into the casino; irony at its best perhaps? I don't know, however I do know that I'm a sucker for a Sensitive New-Age Guy, a Sunday afternoon bike ride and an echinacea smoothie. Give me a few more years and I might even turn into a vegetarian...
Blue skies,
-E
No comments:
Post a Comment