Purnatva. The Sanskrit word for that blissful state we all crave. Absolute complete fulfillment. As we grow up, we find our own different ways of pursuing it.
The most basic form is the one related to our basic primitive needs – food for example.
Deficiency makes us hungry. Hunger drives us to consume. Consumption leads to fulfillment. Overtime we get hardwired to find fulfillment through consumption.
Consumption-fuelled fulfillment doesn’t just make us eat more it makes us who the economic-society wants us to be – a consumer.
Whenever we feel lifestyle-deficient we acquire and consume a lifestyle fix. Fixes come in many forms. A badge-car. A badge-suit. A badge-bag. A badge-job. Or sometimes even a badge-accent.
Our life-script (with translations):
“A Louis Vuitton bag! I-want-it-I-want-it-I-so-want it! I wish I could afford one.”
Translation: All the nice people I know own one. I would like to be like them (and not the miserable self I really am)
“It’ll be great if I could get one for the next party.”
Translation: I can’t be carrying a cheap Janpath when everyone out there will walk in holding LVs! It looks so cheap (my ‘cheapness’ will get found out!)
“Wow! I will really make an impact.”
Translation: I don’t really belong in there. The LV is my passport. It’ll help me announce my arrival and make me feel ‘equal’.
A FEW MONTHS LATER… the next party is upon me
“I can’t be carrying the same bag to the next party! I want another one.”
Translation: Now that I have established my image, I have to live up to it. I don’t want people to see my wretchedness.
“God! I can’t afford it this month. Let me somehow scrounge it.”
THE NEW BAG HAS BEEN BOUGHT… the party is behind me. A new LV advertisement in a badge-magazine I have just subscribed to, jumps at me. “The brand new range of LVs – blah-blah-blah”
Translation: If you are still using the old range, you are fuddy-duddy and totally uncool. You buy badge-bags to look cooler than you really are… remember? Come on, be a good consumer. Throw away that well-preserved collection you own – feel lifestyle-deficient again. Be ‘hungry’ and consume the new range. Fulfillment Guaranteed!
“The all-new Louis Vuitton collection! I-want-it-I-want-it-I-so-want it! I wish I could afford one.”
We are ‘just right’ for the world we live in. The ‘big corporate’ wants us to buy & consume props – “Profits”! The government wants us to buy & consume props – “Economic activity, GDP, Taxes”! We want to buy & consume props – “to feed our chronically deficient self-esteem”! Win-win-win!
Ranjan, Good thoughts. The larger truth is that social status seeking is real. There is some part of us that thrives on doing things better than others, and thus be higher up on the social food chain - like there are classifications of brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra. They may not be directly relevant today, but we certainly need new rules of the game, based on our needs, and guided by merit and fairness. We also need new rituals and festivals to celebrate a more balanced way of life.
ReplyDeleteToday, if the society tells them that money and things that money can purchase - like the Louis Vuitton bag, you cite - denote social status, they will go after that. If you tell them it's a big house, or a fancy car, 24x7 air-conditioned living (including the Power Gym)...they will go after that. Most people are just following the script for SOCIAL STATUS that is so hard coded into our society by now, including much of your own earnings may be coming from further complicating, what you may not like to advice others. The script that has created the "Propped Up People" is this. Can we generate enough velocity to escape its gravity? :) :
"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats- his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies.
These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency. We require not only “forced draft” consumption, but “expensive” consumption as well. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption. The home power tools and the whole “do-it-yourself” movement are excellent examples of “expensive” consumption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Lebow
People like me who challenge this coding are easily targeted as "cultural misfits" (I'm proud to be one :)) and "branded" as "too passionate about sustainability and environment", which has caused me sufficient hardship and substantial monetary losses, but never enough to deter me from this course.
People, I believe are real. The problem "lies" elsewhere.
That's so elegantly put Vikash. Agree with every word you say. Everyone is in the fulfillment-only-through-consumption trap. If everyone consumes at the rate we do, our planet will soon be a huge pile of dung. The 'dung' produced by this linear system just keeps getting accumulated. In a circular system waste of one entity becomes food for another. Who will consume the waste that we produce?
ReplyDeleteHave you heard of the asura called Keetimukha? After devouring everything he could he was forced to devour himself feet up to satisfy his huge appetite. We have created a Keertimukha here.
That's a huge innovation and branding challenge, in my opinion, in today's context. More so, because for most people, the perception is too clouded, mostly because their salaries or other "rewards" - like the Louis Vuitton bag - is "dependent" on perpetuating the EVIL - Keetimukha's scourge, rather than seeing the truth and fighting back. This may be perceived by common yardsticks as immoral and even criminal negligence to their own health and to their children, but our social structures and systems are not geared to address that. And then there is this DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD called DEMO-"N"-CRACY.
ReplyDeleteI'm very keen to integrate a professional approach to what we so passionately believe in. I've a mandate to create new brand eco-systems, at the company I am working with. Let's talk. I just wrote an insight paper on this thinking, as I shall post for the "tribe" for discussion and feedback.
Yes brands are chasing us and we are chasing brands...its the 'IN' way of life.Its a constant chase. It will continue to unless one decides to prop him/herself rather than the brand that he props up.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own life- i walked in for my first interview(some 14 years bk) with a tailored set of shirt and trouser -courtesy my loving dad. My dad for many years had been wearing only tailored clothes as had been many of his generation. Once into the job, i quickly moved up the brand ladder from oxemberg to excalibur to the yearly arrow or a van heusen and so on.. till a point that i started being uncomfortable with showcasing a brand on my trousers and then i took a journey back into tailored clothes.
i also have another case- who was doing very well in UK, came back to bangalore and bought a wagonR.(dinky cars r best in bangalore he says)
So its upto the individual i guess to decided whether to propup or be propped
I think this is the predicament of an upwardly mobile person. A person who is afraid of being static. Perhaps a chronic balancing of equations to feel less insecure about 'moral' underachievements. Or a constant guilt that they have left something behind to gain something new in their careers. I wouldn't call it greed or in most cases- showing off. It's a manifestation of change that makes a person feel like they have earned it- new clothes, new memberships, swanky cars, glossy bags. (I only mean people who don't ANNOUNCE their arrival with the Clinky Plunk of brand names- they are show offs!) I can't be sure of it yet, but I think this must be the rat race playing mind games :)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, sometimes, the lifestyle deficiency could even be from an utter lack of financial stability!
The hunt for more, is an ingrained instinct in all animals, chimps fight other chimps for more territory, even though the existing territory perfectly meets all their needs, a bower bird constantly surveys and if possible steals from and defaces competitive birds displays to get a leg up.
ReplyDeleteFor us, Badges of status and lifestyle are today's version of winning in the hunt for more; brands have been tapping this instinct for ages and very successfully.
So the task for brands like Louis Vuitton is to constantly redefine the standards to ensure the thrill of the chase is unending even as brands lower down the ladder, create smaller steps constantly at relevant points in the ladder so consumers across the pyramid can participate in this race.
Ranjan..very good thought - 'Propped up People' ...I see everyone talking about Keertimukha...(though I don't think it is the right analogy)...Let me be the devil here...I start with the quote ranjan wrote
ReplyDelete"Whenever we feel lifestyle-deficient we acquire and consume a lifestyle fix. Fixes come in many forms. A badge-car. A badge-suit. A badge-bag. A badge-job. Or sometimes even a badge-accent"
What is the harm in being lifestyle deficient...A man/woman gets a badge because of his efficiency and the value he/she brings to the organisation that he works for. Because of the value that he brings.. the organisation grows, organisation grows, he gets a badge, he gets a badge - he consumes. In the pyramid, he also ensures that others follow him..the hunger gets transferred to all those who follow... Aren't we actually growing the economy? Today we can boast of Nitin Nohria, Indira Nooyi more than the snake charmers badge that we had a few years back.
So why are we trying to have a communist way of thinking rationing everything to your need. We should be lucky to have atleast garibi mitao in the real sense than the rich getting richer only. Let's flaunt what we have !!!
Cheers !!
As we try to reach self actualization (Maslow's hierarchy), we here in Asia are entrapped with lifestyle being the major contributor of quality in life. I get judged for not carrying LV, Gucci or Coach. I get judged for not following the lastest designs or be seen in designer clothes. People want to own the latest phones and gadgets and be seen holding them prominently when they travel in public transport. It's the desire to be seen successful in one's life. There's also a growing population in some cities in Asia where women are going under the knife to enhance their physical attributes; not to mention fake eyelashes and paddings for the less endowned women in certain parts of her body to look sexy in front and back. There is a sense of selfishness drawn by an inferior complex of oneself which creates the desire to have high esteem through owning designer goods/expensive lifestyle and plastic surgery.
ReplyDeleteI think that ugly (inside/out) people need to deck themselves with branded items to feel good about themselves and those who love themselves for what they are do not indulge in this activity. This is also a symptom of the 'new rich people' mentality who has more purchasing power than their parents did and want to look 'successful'.
@Madhusudan, "So why are we trying to have a communist way of thinking rationing everything to your need. We should be lucky to have atleast garibi mitao in the real sense than the rich getting richer only. Let's flaunt what we have !!!"
ReplyDeleteYou truly speak for the Devil. The first time I heard these lines was in my 1st year in engineering at IIT Kharagpur in 1989, where a certain tribe of students were "branded" as "commies". As part of the ragging/induction, we were strictly forbid by the "dominating" tribe to shun the "commies", not even go near to where they stayed.
Out of sheer curiosity, I would interact with some of them and found that they were not so beastly as they were made out to be.
As I grew up and reflected upon this episode, I realised that this was strongly linked to the IIT's dependence on the US universities for scholarhips and other "doles" such as Visiting Faculty etc.. Looking back, I awoke to the true meaning of the oft repeated phrase: THE DEVIL "LIES" IN THE DETAILS.
This pathological dependence was enmeshed into almost every detail of the IITs existence.
So, when I chose to speak my mind and questioned my professors and the dean, with an approach paper on IIT's raison d'etre to provide technological education, research and inventions that are most appropriate and relevant for the Indian society and economy and move outwards to serve neighboring countries' needs and peripherally to rest of the world.
In parallel, there would certainly be interactions that are non-linear with other geographies, but certainly not a pathological dependence with one distant land, that was showing early signs of emerging as the Devil's Den and was already a major threat to humanity. In the name of as you rightly point out - "wiping out the evil of communism".
What also amazed me was the IIT's glorious neglect of the local needs but also a costly disregard for the science & technology seeds embedded in its ancient wisdom, to be adapted to the present reality. If there were exceptions, the Devil's neo-converts would work with vengeance to suppress it.
More than 20 years later, as the Devil comes out of its shadows in the form of the American Oligarch Machinery, confident of how pervasively it has intruded into human institutions and vulnerable minds (out of its ignorance, imbecility, vengeance or hurt)), it's a deja vu. :) The Devil always hides behind some of these slogans "garibi hataao" when in its Keetimukhi greed, it wants to devoour everyone, including as Ranjan points out, itself.
There is a deeper simplicity to all the surface complexity that many of us feel overwhelmed with. The Devil's destiny is to be destroyed. Human destiny is to live its live to the full and move on.
Change is real. And yet there are few things, and which happen once in a lifetime or may be several lifetimes that never change.
That kind of opportunity is with us.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the title of your blog, Greedygivers, I thought it was something to do with social entrepreneurship. But now, you have set me thinking. Is that also a new found badge?
@Lubna :) Yes it sure would be a badge for some. Depends on what need drives you to acquire it. If it is a prop that helps you not feel inadequate...it is a badge. Why don't you join the group on LinkedIn and/or Facebook. There are some interesting discussions happening there.
ReplyDelete