Branding is in the zeitgeist. We can’t ignore it. It used to be that just products were advertised with bright colors and logos. Now every human being is a product that can be marketed. It’s as though everyone has their own reality television show via social media. The shame is we market ourselves as a product willingly! It goes beyond using it as a rationale for climbing up the corporate ladder. It isn’t just about being entrepreneurial. People without any reason to exploit themselves, do just that. We’ve moved way past our colonial roots of modesty. We have embraced attention whoredom without acknowledging the price. Milton Friedman once said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Now, while he was talking strictly about the economy, I think it extends further. There is a cost for everything, even how we spend time.
There is a price to pay for this obsession with self. For every action we pay a price. What price could this be? Surely, it isn’t money. We pay with our very being. We pay with our precious life force. There’s only so much time. We need to spend our time on this planet wisely. The selfies we post are mostly a lousy way to spend the gift of life. Now, I am not writing from an ivory tower. I post shirtless workout videos, post provocative art and opinions. I am not condemning the ego. A healthy ego is important to succeed. We need to have a healthy amount of self in order to traverse the chaos of life. Men made of straw cannot stand up to the nastiest storms. We must have an iron will and balls to deal with chaos. How do we get stronger? We need to know ourselves, understand our values and aspire to be better. So, being reflective is a good thing. Do we need to brand ourselves with the current fashion in order to understand ourselves?
Historically, there was a healthy separation of the self in order to gain deeper insight. We stripped away our identity, ego and societal markers in order to delve deeper. We went below skin surface so we could get a deeper look. The writer and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau lived in the woods for two years to be isolated from society. He did this so he could focus less on his identity to gain a deeper understanding of who he was, and gain a real perspective on reality. That’s about as Zen as it gets. Now, we first build the exterior to find out who we are on the inside. We, humans, are sculptural in nature. We create a framework to build upon, or we chip away at the surface to reveal what’s below.
We are constantly changing. To find out who we are is a quotidian endeavor. The world is chaotic. The world within our mind is chaotic as well. It takes a lot of things to weather the storms of life. It takes above all, mindset. I’m an advocate of dressing or presenting well. The world reads us by our surface appearance first. We put a lot of emphasis on this endeavor. That may not be a bad thing though. If we have values then it may be a worthwhile practice.
It seems like we lost our way as a nation. I often talk about how I was a communist vegan in my past. Those were aspects of my identity. I still remember pledging the allegiance to the flag though. I still remember a time where athletes stood for the national anthem. I remember when we hadn’t gotten societal amnesia. It seems like the overwhelming gestalt, if you read mainstream media, is an Anti-American one. I’m dumfounded by the sentiment. We have committed heinous acts under the stars and stripes: slavery, Trail of Tears and Japanese Interment camps (to name a few). We also did amazing things. We ended slavery, which we didn’t invent. We created most of the advancements in medicine and made the freest society the world has ever known. I don’t understand why we are being programmed to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I imagine all adults understand that no man is without sin and neither is any country. Spoiler alert: there is no Shangri-La.
There is a cost for everything. I imagine that we’ve paid quite a pretty penny in the pursuit of the self as product. We’ve blindly spouted views we don’t really believe in. We only think we believe them, because we haven’t taken the time to read enough about the topic. We’ve trusted the wrong talking heads. Almost all of Hollywood is Liberal. This institution is what shapes the culture. We have had to seek out different views in the ether of the Internet. If you don’t agree with the popular fashion then you will have trouble. We all want to be liked, and it’s easier to conform. If we conform our identity is not in jeopardy. We still pay a price though. We pay when we don’t search for the deeper self. We can wear Nike’s, and declare ourselves morally superior. We can boycott Nike, and pretend that it really makes a difference. We pay a heavier price for going along with rhetoric we don’t believe in. We also pay for our ignorance when we don’t investigate deeper. I’ve been corrected many times before, and I bet that it will happen many times more. No, I won’t wear Nike’s. Yes, I know it doesn’t make a difference. No, I won’t go along with anti-American rhetoric.
I pay the price for every bad decision I make, and I’ve made a few. I haven’t lost yet when I invested in myself. When I’ve learned something I’ve truly gained something. Social media and the obsession of self have not done much for me. My American flag baseball cap doesn’t make me pro freedom. The best part of us does not succumb to the latest fashion or opinions. Our iron will and balls are what make us. We have a large part to do with who we become. We can decide to change ourselves, build ourselves and shape ourselves into something better. It isn’t about spending our time chiseling out a brand; it’s about carving deep to reveal what’s inside us.