The Boot of a Challenge

The reality of the present world is that once you’ve covered basic needs like internet, food, shelter and the rest, all the gravy seems to be social image and worth. Status, in short. It’s about how we measure up to our peers, those who were once on equal standing with us. Success in this case could be termed as surpassing said peers. Little things like a wage raise or a particularly spectacular appliance can make all the difference in such a petty world.

And it’s also fucking stupid.

We as a culture surround ourselves with this ideal of merit being entirely comparable to everyone else. What other cause could possibly explain the severe stress that someone who could comfortably retire yet goes on working for the money experiences? They get respected for it. It’s about the attention that an individual receive due to the image they present. I can’t help but wonder why we bother.

I’m not so spineless and needy as to require the constant admiration and approval of everyone around me. No, I will not go shopping in trendy places to wear pretty skirts or cake make-up. I look good enough without that shit, and it doesn’t take hours out of my day which could be better spent writing angry angry things. As a population we need to start looking beyond the dollar sign, the manicures, the flash cars and the law suits against anyone who trusts us with the sensibility not to step off a cliff un-warned of by a sign, but rather by a bare patch of ground and a sudden drop. The metaphor extends to any stupid compensation lawsuit ever filed for the sake of money.

All of this comes at the expense of critical thinking and advancement of ideas. It’s a select few in our western world who take status to be the value of an individual’s thinking rather than the cash that results from it. This does nothing for the evolution we have subverted in so many other ways.

I do not need a popular image. I do not need wealth status, nor the anxiety which comes with it. I do not need a big house. I do not need a big car. I do not need expensive clothes. I do not need another fucking women’s magazine telling me that to ‘be myself’ I have to look like every other pumped-up princess strutting around the catwalk. What I want, what I really need, is plain and honest intellectual stimulation. I, like everyone else, need to have the steel-capped boot of a challenge stuffed into the flabby backside of complacency. It’ll bruise like a motherfucker, but it’ll be worth it.