I had a visitor last night ask why I haven’t furnished my living room three years after moving in. She always asks. I used to say easy to clean. I haven’t gotten around to it. After the move I didn’t feel like starting over with new furniture just yet.
This time I stammered out, “I plan to.”
I have a single folding table with my PC on it in there. One folding chair.
I felt like saying “it keeps your visits short.”
Thoughts about respectability
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EdithKeeler
- Posts: 1099
- Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:55 pm
Re: Thoughts about respectability
I love it! I’d say it next time.I felt like saying “it keeps your visits short.”
Re: Thoughts about respectability
I would say the company I work for is unusually conservative, but I still think that I gain respect overall for riding an old bike to work, keeping a canister of oatmeal at my desk, etc. On average I think my coworkers would say I'm weird, but in a cool/interesting way rather than a contemptible one. Sometimes I feel reflexively defensive when someone questions me (especially after spending time on this forum 
), but most of the time I bet they don't really care and are only asking because what I'm doing is unusual and therefore salient. It probably does help to be a white, high income male though.
), but most of the time I bet they don't really care and are only asking because what I'm doing is unusual and therefore salient. It probably does help to be a white, high income male though.-
Lillailler
- Posts: 67
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 7:09 am
Re: Thoughts about respectability
A couple of things I have noticed:
Rich people, especially old money rich, literally do not care what anyone else thinks. This is one of the things your FU money is for.
If the people you associate with don't approve of your lifestyle, do you care? If you do you should find better people to associate with. FU money again is your friend.
Having said that there are a host of opportunities for re-framing:
- You home-cook your lunch, not because it's cheaper, but because no restaurant nearby meets your exacting standards for flavour, nutrition, variety, etc.
- You bike to work, not to save bus fare, but because it is healthy and sustainable (a fashionable word that you can use to to make an invincible case for or against almost anything).
- Plain, comfortable non-brand clothing is your choice because the fashion industry is just one way that corporations systematically exploit the emotional needs of poor people, and you won't support or condone that.
True respectability lies in being able to take care of your own needs and those of your family, and still having something left over for others. Buying a shallow consumer lifestyle and a Macmansion to suit it should be regarded as feckless if you can afford it and something worse, can't find the right word, if you have to borrow to keep it up.
Lastly, I do tend to dress 'binary' - traditional clothes-of-power when dealing with bankers, lawyers and others who are impressed by these things, and whatever I feel like the rest of the time.
Rich people, especially old money rich, literally do not care what anyone else thinks. This is one of the things your FU money is for.
If the people you associate with don't approve of your lifestyle, do you care? If you do you should find better people to associate with. FU money again is your friend.
Having said that there are a host of opportunities for re-framing:
- You home-cook your lunch, not because it's cheaper, but because no restaurant nearby meets your exacting standards for flavour, nutrition, variety, etc.
- You bike to work, not to save bus fare, but because it is healthy and sustainable (a fashionable word that you can use to to make an invincible case for or against almost anything).
- Plain, comfortable non-brand clothing is your choice because the fashion industry is just one way that corporations systematically exploit the emotional needs of poor people, and you won't support or condone that.
True respectability lies in being able to take care of your own needs and those of your family, and still having something left over for others. Buying a shallow consumer lifestyle and a Macmansion to suit it should be regarded as feckless if you can afford it and something worse, can't find the right word, if you have to borrow to keep it up.
Lastly, I do tend to dress 'binary' - traditional clothes-of-power when dealing with bankers, lawyers and others who are impressed by these things, and whatever I feel like the rest of the time.
Re: Thoughts about respectability
[quote=Lillailler post_id=160828 time=151773281
True respectability lies in being able to take care of your own needs and those of your family, and still having something left over for others.
You hit the nail on the head. Having something left over for others is difficult to do and often overlooked. But that is a very important part.
Nobody can create a better world on their own. It fundamentally has to start with helping others.
But how do you do that without giving a drink a drink? And having done that, you don't have sufficient reserves to give the legitimately dehydrated a drink. And what is sufficient reserves?
Sorry. Loaded subject that seems to be skirted a lot...
True respectability lies in being able to take care of your own needs and those of your family, and still having something left over for others.
You hit the nail on the head. Having something left over for others is difficult to do and often overlooked. But that is a very important part.
Nobody can create a better world on their own. It fundamentally has to start with helping others.
But how do you do that without giving a drink a drink? And having done that, you don't have sufficient reserves to give the legitimately dehydrated a drink. And what is sufficient reserves?
Sorry. Loaded subject that seems to be skirted a lot...
Re: Thoughts about respectability
All cultures exert pressure on people to conform. Today, the pressueres are likely more situational than in a long time. The "mcmansion+disneyland" is one, and quite a powerful one, but there's definitely also "studio in sf+vipassana retreat" and many others. I think there's a culture of unabashed functionalism on here in the footsteps of Dear Leader Jacob. If that suits you then go for it. Personally I'm too anxious to fit in to take that path. I can't help feeling that there are arguments to be made wrt web-of-goals for compromise, marketing and aestethics. I try to frame the motivations behind my solutions with values, aestethics, personality, time frugality, health, etc, both with others and within myself. Not only as a function of financial assets/flows.