Wrap Your Dream You in Plastic

Everyone hates their driver's license photo. This is a problem that I hope will be solved in the new millenium. What I'd like to see is a country where we have IDs that show the people we wish we were.

Some people might be content to just change their hair or faces, others might beef up or sprout boobs. But I think a fair number of people would be in costume, wearing medieval outfits or Egyptian headresses. Aging high school ballplayers would wear their uniforms, with the same bright, sunny faces in their yearbooks.

Some folks imagine this is what heaven will be like: that we get a new body of our choosing. That's a nice thought, but flawed. Theoretically, we'll all be so happy and content in heaven that a petty concern like our appearance wouldn't even enter our heads. In heaven we'll problem all be ducks or something--it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that here on Earth we have a lot of moody bastards that hate their lives and themselves, mostly because of how they look. But if they could show their optimum selves to the state trooper or the boiuncer at the bar, of that was their legal image, then maybe their lives would be that much more worth living.

I think so, at least.