Living up to Images

We seem to think that it is only actors and celebrities who have to live up to the images we have of them. That the rest of us hoi polloi are, at least, free of the pressure of having to do so. That, as with a lot of things we take for granted, is far from true.

The problem is that humanity seems geared to understand things in terms of simplistic images. It is too difficult to assess anything, most especially fellow-humans, without comparing it to a set of images we have and slotting them into categories represented by those images.

Like, for example, the idea of a 'good man' or 'good woman'. Time was when this 'Sati Savitri' type of woman was considered the epitome of 'good' womanhood. The sari-clad, devotional, abjectly respectful and yada yada person, you know. AND the 'good man', bending over backwards to carry everyone along...(Always felt that the definition of 'good' included 'stupid' as one of the key ingredients, going by how the 'good' person repeatedly trusts the villainous and was able to be utterly shocked even the zillionth time they were betrayed by them.)

True that most people did not expect EVERYTHING but, broad stroke, they expected most of that. Failing which, the person was slotted into 'bad'. Most of social reform, whether one realizes it or not, is in redrafting those images. Like, say, changing the image to 'Wearing jeans CAN be added to the 'good' image of a woman' and things like that. And so on with the images related to racism or caste-ism.

That, though, is going far afield for me. In the more everyday life, you still find yourself living up to images. As in, 'You are a manager. You cannot dress like a rag-picker'. Or 'If you keep eating in street-food places and travel by buses, how do you expect people to respect you?' and so on and so on.

At every stage in life, you expect that getting to the next stage will give you freedom from the straitjacket of living up to images. And find that you have only exchanged straitjackets. The funny thing is that 'growth' actually can make you feel more uncomfortable than before. After all, the straitjacket that you grew up in was something you got used to and, so, does not feel very constraining. But the one you moved up into...it pinches like a new shoe.

So, yeah, I thought that I would be free of all that once I quit. And quit early in order to be free earlier. Alas, it did not work for me either.

You see, people were all gaga about the fact that I had quit early; were all praise for me taking the step. And I basked and preened in all that praise.

Till I realized that they had an IMAGE of what sort of lifestyle I'd live post-retirement. If my actual lifestyle measured up to that, I'd continue to get that praise. If not...

The point is that the praise was not for having RETIRED early. It was for having made enough to live THAT lifestyle soon enough to retire early that was begetting the praise. The moment they see that it is restricting the lifestyle that made it possible...

Anyway, as long as you live with people, you end up having to live up to images. You want to change society, you have to put in the effort in changing the contours of those defining images. If, instead, you try to make people do away with images and assess each person and situation on its own merits, you are bound to fail.

Me...well, since I am no social reformer and since I am reclusive by nature, I try to do without PEOPLE as far as possible!