Perfection is “lean” and “taut” and “hard” — like a boy athlete of twenty, a girl gymnast of twelve. What kind of body is that for a man of fifty or a woman of any age? “Perfect”? What’s perfect? A black cat on a white cushion, a white cat on a black one … A soft brown woman in a flowery dress… There are a whole lot of ways to be perfect, and not one of them is attained through punishment.

~ Ursula Le Guin, on dieters and exercisers in Ursula K. Le Guin – On Aging and What Beauty Really Means

Notes:

• SMWI* = Saturday Morning Work-Out Inspiration
• Photo: SabonHomeBlog.
• Quote from Ursula Le Guin’s Book: The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination