Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

(Ogden Nash follows that on with “ …that’s any fun at all for humanity”.)
All humans, young and old, are vain. We want to have fun with our friends and we want to look good in their eyes. We’re more likely to go for attractive shoes than consider whether the leather they’re made of is okay for them to be made from. We’ll maybe eat non-animal foods for health reasons but not rule out wearing shoes (made with the skins of animals) because this won’t adversely affect our health. And even with health itself we may consider eating junk food because, especially when we’re young, health isn’t an issue … that is until we start to lose control of our body weight … and even then we only tinker with foods that fatten us. That’s a long way from establishing good health practices. Whether young or old, we try to squeeze what we can from life. We spend big, risk debt, ignore warnings and mainly consider our own interests. We want to live for the moment. Above all we try not to become like those sad people (usually older people) who ‘don’t seem to have ‘any fun at all’.
A young person’s instinct will be to paint life in with a few brush strokes taken from a brightly coloured palette. To them it looks convincing. It seems instinctive. It doesn’t have to be thought about too deeply in case we inadvertently undermine our self confidence. At a certain age youngsters, who’ve been repressed throughout childhood, are suddenly free to experience every possible stimulating experience. And why not? We only live once. Live life while you can …until the shutters come down and we are forced to change (usually in later years). We’ve become the victims of our own vanity and conceit.