On Meaning and Identity

This one’s going to be fun. Buckle up.

So for consumerism to work, we need two things. We need a Consumer, and we need a Producer. Now to produce, we need labourers.

This System, needs to stay “alive” and simply put, you need the Yin and Yang, to balance each other out.

What’s fascinating is this Pattern of Continuation occurs again and again and…

For the Universe to stay around and not expand into nothingness, Physicists are finding Dark Matter is needed to slow down the rate of acceleration (shocker).

So to continue the economic growth, and all the Capitalists fed and happy, the coal in the furnace, driving this System, is of course dual sided. Not only do we need consumers buying (the more mindless the better). We need them working.

People who are buying all these products identify with what they Buy and Labour. You are more your Nikes than you think.

What are you gonna be when you grow up?

Is a question asked so early, with such religious zeal in Consumerist cultures that it might as well be propoganda (it is).

When a man buys a new shirt by Nike, he’s saying something.

And when a young man ‘searches’ endlessly, for what he wants to Be, he’s searching for something. His identity.

In their 20s men are searching for this, to define themselves. Usually in the status hierarchy, but more importantly, spiritually. You can interchange ‘spiritual’ here, for conceptual. Their true Form or Identity in the Universe of Creation.

Need an Everlasting Identity that goes beyond your day to day? Pick a career! Doesn’t have to be a good one. Just as long as it has a Title that you can wear, to finally answer the question of “Who are you?” For what someone does for sure can answer that question. And even more importantly, a predictable cadence of promotions so you can brag to others, and also get that hit every once in a while. To be reminded “Who are you?”

So then the reason we are always asked the question: “What do you do?” is more a quick way to understand “Who are you?”

In non-consumer cultures, they don’t really ask this. I mean people know if your well to-do or down-and-out. But they don’t care what you do as much. Because those cultures identify with their families, cultures, language, things like that. But they soon as well are moving our way. As Consumerism spreads, so do these crazy beliefs.

All of this makes sense why there’s such a need to define ourselves. It is almost as if Consumerism Labour stripped us of who we really are… Removed our very being, as we are constantly ‘evaluated’ by our ability to produce and consume. The double sided coin of Consumerism.

Now I am not knocking Capitalism. Or saving-ism. Which is a fine thing. Moving knowledge to the level of the worker. Capital / savings deployed efficiently to create wonderful things. What I’m against is the Identity Stripping, Soul Destroying, Community / Culture Dissolving results of Capitalism. Similar to Communism, where it's all fine and good, but the results are a few people at the top telling everybody how many screws to make (badly).

But this post is not about theories on Economy. This post is simply about Identity, and how we attach to what we do with such zeal, because without it, we are seemingly nothing.

An identity is something that is meant to be Eternal. Unable to be taken away. So how could it be that we are so attached to what we do to define us? If what we do can be stopped by a simple firing or accident?