Buying Status

You don’t have to like it, but you need to make decisions. I don’t mean just picking your brand, Nike or New Balance. I don’t mean picking your music, Adam Levine or Joe Strummer. I don’t even mean that it’s a choice of defining yourself by a word. What am I getting at? The world is the framework to discover who we are. We can’t build who we are solely based on the purchases we make. Sometimes we learn from fighting. Other times we learn from what we end up loving.

We live in the world as herd animals. We may be complicated herd animals, but alas, we’re hierarchical. We fight to find our place in the pecking order, and improve it if possible.

So, we can buy some Nike’s. We can buy a slick car like a Honda Element. We can put on the façade of success, but this doesn’t guarantee preeminence. It takes a lot more work than that to be considered worthy.

In a big city we know less people. Thus, costume becomes far more significant. In a smaller village, the visual markers of status are not tantamount to success. Intrapersonal relationships are more valued; the consequences are greater concerning reputation. Word in a small town gets around; trust me on that one. The city, especially NYC, acts as a playground for individuals. A village acts as a sandbox for schoolmates.

Sometimes, we need to reset. I was overly concerned with my image in NYC. I can’t say I’m not concerned now; I have a healthy awareness of image. There’s a balance. We need to make decisions. We involuntarily tell the world what we are before we even utter a syllable. We declare a lot about ourselves by our fitness, dress, grooming and posture. You may not like it, but this is the game.

It’s a relief to live in a village, and not need to present success (or try to). My status now is really more about my allegiance to the community, because I live in a smaller town. We still need to present ourselves one way or another. I make decisions. We all do. You don’t just throw on a burlap sack. You need to decide with some sensibility what you identify with. Then you need to weigh how it is you would like to get your identity across. Why does this matter? It matters, because you have to play the game whether you like to or not.

I think we all learned something poignant in, Fight Club, “You’re not your fucking Khakis.” So, what are we? We are an amalgamation of muscle, bone, consciousness and history. I would also suggest there’s a soul somewhere beneath the sinew. We need to do the work in life that goes beyond physical appearance. We need to develop values; we need to develop our mind/body; we need to serve the community. These are the deeper aspects of the game. I would argue that having a healthy respect for the physical self aids this deeper game. Status is earned through hard work, dedication and motivation.

We cannot buy status. We do try though, and sometimes we can fool others for a moment. The smokescreen of a nice pair of khakis lasts only a second. Then we encounter the wearer of said khakis. We then delve deeper into the person’s identity. We then look inward into the person to see if they are worthwhile. We all make this judgment. That’s why we’re not friends with everybody. We discern who is worth their salt.

We cannot buy status. We need to earn status. You cannot put on a costume of virtue. You cannot walk around with a Starbucks coffee, and prove that you support fair trade. You can merely hint at what you are by the shell of what you wear. That’s the bigger picture. We need to spend more time discerning our values then what brand of sneaker speaks to us. We cannot buy status or a shoe signifying our place in the world. We have to work hard in order to demonstrate our utility.

We play the game, with values in mind, in order to realize our dreams. We cannot buy ourselves a job well done. We need to toil for it. We cannot buy ourselves out of fucking up. We need to repent, learn from it and hopefully become wiser. So as Tyler Durden told us ever so bluntly, “We’re consumers. We’re the by-products of a lifestyle obsession.” Yes, we are consumers. No, we don’t have to be by-products of a lifestyle obsession. We can choose to be better than that. We can have a healthy respect for the game, and play it well with something deeper than just purchasing power.