Today I drove past a store that sells guns and gold. A gun can be a lot of things, one of which is the most useful thing in the world,given the wrong situation. Gold is about survival, especially now. If the economy collapses further, as many economists predict, gold may be a safe place to keep your money.
The pairing makes sense like chicken and waffles does. Two totally different products that are both used by much of the same demographic.
Across the street was a billboard. I followed the rusty post up to the fresh advertisement at the top. "Niemann Marcus at The Domain! Manolo Blahnik! Gucci!". Against the pink background were giant car sized images of expensive stiletto heels.
My gut reaction was shock and a tinge of disgust. Who BUYS this stuff?
Well, me for one. Not anymore, but I used to go to Niemann Marcus every week. I'd spend an hour or two going through all of the new arrivals, particularly Cavalli. I would buy nearly anything made by Cavalli, sometimes even if it didn't fit me.
I was so into it.
That changed when Life Nomadic came into the picture. Even if I didn't change my mindset, I knew it didn't make sense to buy clothes I'd be leaving behind. I slowly tapered off buying new clothes.
My mindset changed when It was time to sell everything. I brought beautiful expensive clothes to the thrift store. They gave me pennies on the dollar. Shirts I had spent twenty minutes deliberating on were given a glance and thrown into a pile after being tacked with a "$5" tag.
And that's when I had my epiphany. This stuff is worthless.
I have only one pair of pants now. They are grey brushed nylon and they zip off at the knees to make shorts. Because I wore them as shorts in the sun so much,the pant legs are a bit darker than the shorts part.
I have three shirts, one plain black, one plain blue, and one plain red. They're identical other than the color.
When I told a long time friend this today his immediate response was, "Wait... you've been wearing the same pants all these times I've seen you in the past few months?"
Yup. Know why? Because IT DOESN'T MATTER and no one really even notices. People are way too busy evaluating whether or not they look okay to actually judge how you look.
Pop quiz,what was your best friend wearing yesterday? Can you remember what anyone was wearing yesterday?
I'm not saying fashion doesn't matter at all. It does, and I'm glad the industry exists. My shirts fit me well, and that makes me happy. I like that my pants are relatively slim. I think it's great to have clothes that you enjoy that look good on you. Having a unique style that reflects your personality is an excellent thing.
And I'd be lying if I told you that my pulse doesn't quicken just a hair when I see a girl who is dressed perfectly.
What bothers me is the pervasive attitude of caring SO MUCH about one's image. And of course I've been a sucker for this worse than 99% of the people. I just had to have a Mercedes and designer clothes and a Rolex and all that garbage. I was focused on it.
I see people now who are so obviously OBSESSED with what they look like and I feel this deep pity. I know that I could try to explain all this to them, but they wouldn't care. I wouldn't have cared either.
What I've learned is that people don't care who you LOOK LIKE, they care who you ARE. If your clothes give a hint about who you REALLY are, that's great. If they're pushing you as someone you're not, you've got a major problem on your hands.
Focus on what matters. Image is an easy way to feel like you're improving yourself without actually having to do it.
My recent war that I've been waging has been against stuff. For a while (and by that I mean since 7th grade), I've produced my own income and spent most of it on things from the internet. I've talked about this before so I won't bore you with the laundry lists of my posessions.
Then when I sold my house in North Austin, I was faced with the prospect of moving all that stuff. My most financially productive years were while I lived there, so I bought a ton of stuff. During that period of collection it never occurred to me that I would eventually move. My garage as well as one of the bedrooms in the house because warehouses for my things.
When I moved, I took a pretty extreme approach. I went through every item in the house and made a decision - either I needed it or not. If it was worth more than $50 or so I sold it. If it was worth less than that I put it in a bedroom. If it was worth less than $5-10 I donated it or threw it away. I posted my address on craigslist and let people go into the bedroom and take all that they wanted. Within a few hours the bulk of my stuff was taken away.
I finally bought some clothes. At the beginning of the year I declared "In 2013 I'm not buying books or clothing."
The catalyst for this purchase was a gift certificate that accompanied a race packet from this past weekend. The certificate was disguised in an envelope which said that there were one of four prizes inside, but you had to make a purchase to open it. I headed to Dave's Running in Perrysburg to see what I had won and get some running shorts.
These shorts are nice. I had been running in normal athletic shorts, nothing special about them but also nothing wrong with them. I didn't feel like they added time or increased the effort, but they were nothing anything like these.
This new pair is light and smooth. They make the old pair feel like I was running in a heavy cotton dress more suited for raising barns and churning butter than logging miles.
But I bought something.