Articulation.
The whiteboard. What is the beauty of the whiteboard? A whiteboard is simple. It is two things: a board that is white and a marker. You take the marker, you write with it. Look at the notebook and laptop. When you open a notebook, you consider, what colour pen to use, which should I have margins, what colour to use to underline, what colour to use to write the main body and so on. Likewise, when you open a laptop, you must check to see if it is charged, turn it on, wait, sign in, wait, and then load Word. When Word is loaded, you consider: what font should I use, what colours, to use italics, bold or both, how narrow should my margins be?
A whiteboard is simple. You take the board, you take the pen and you write with the pen. When all is done, you erase the pen, and the board is clear. But the writing is not really erased is it? See, for the blank-slate nature that is the whiteboard, your brain remembers what you've written once you erase it for it is scarce, it is valuable for the writing is fleeting. Your brain does not remember the writing in a notebook or laptop, for you automatically assume that you will go back and look at it, but you rarely do, do you?
Cherry Ripe. You look at its small demeanour, its glistening rose aluminium foil and feel a little sense of exoticness. As you open its foil, you remember, the taste was not so pleasant last time and its size larger, but surely it was just the young tastebuds right? Its colour does not seem to strike you as strange, or distasteful. It is above all, exceedingly normal.
You take your first bite, and your tongue swirls, it feels the texture, a coconutty, mauvelous pink amalgamation of shit. As you, the clown stands there chewing, your peers watching in utter horror, you soon exhibit visible signs of distress, slowly clenching your hands forward in the direction of the nearest bin. You ask yourself, with the red nose and white facepaint, was Cherry Ripe designed this way? After all, most chocolates you buy are made by the same company (Cadbury), so you begin to ponder, is Cherry Ripe designed to be a rose-coloured shit 🌹 🥰 amongst a sea of decently taste-bud appetising chocolates whose cocoa is most probably sourced from slave labour plantations in Cote D'Ivoire or Ghana, where the growers have never tasted the fruits of their own labour.
You begin to search for social proof, does anybody else like Cherry Ripe? But your search is to no avail, for not a single soul is tame to its taste (insert ginger joke here 💀). And so, to fulfil your environmentally conscious mindset, you head to Starbucks to purchase a Venti Caramel Frappe with 5% of the proceeds going to some ✨ charity ✨ that is more likely than not going to money launder the proceeds out of the orphanages or forests they were intended to fund. And thus, you the clown, thinking you have done well for the environment, does naught to consider that maybe corporate interests have something to do with the initial problem in the first place.
Clothing. An integral part of your body, but have you ever paused and thought about what it represents about you, specifically? Clothing is the metamorphosis, the embodiment of desire, of ambition. The act of placing a certain piece of fabric upon your skin is corresponding to the desired self, or ambition to be a part of an in-group. When business people wear upon their suits, their Portmans, their R.M. Williams and so on, it is not because wearing this attire enhances their performance or whatsoever, no, a lot of the time it looks stupid, gives off a ingenuine corporate slave aura, but the real purpose is to be apart of the "professional" in-group. An in-group which has an undefined set of standards, rules and mannerisms in which to comply which is necessary to maintain your job and agreed upon perception of the in-group by the public.
Further to this, in the human need for visual cues to detect between ally and foe, it became necessary for the in-group (tribes, communities, nations) to develop ever more-so sophisticated forms of clothing. This need can be seen further propagated itself through tattoos or body scarification. After all, it is one thing for an enemy to wear a nice dress, but another matter to permanently modify their bodies i.e. "costly signaling". This evolutionary response still subtly influences your choice matter, and as a result, the clothing you choose to wear is a subconscious effect of this so-called "costly signaling", where the extra cost of such products (e.g. luxury clothing, environmentally friendly) can lead to advantages in social interactions and wealth for the user.
However, this is probably obvious to you already. But, it is likely when you pick apart your outfit in your wardrobe you are not analysing each piece of clothing asking yourself "what does this symbolise about my choice of in-groups?". Rather your thought process is more like "oh, this, this and this looks cute, it cools clean, I like it". But really, when you choose to wear a specific brand or style, you a evocating a subconscious desire to be apart of that specific sub-group or ideal. It is easier for me to illustrate this to you with examples:
- 1. Your go-to outfit consists of Nike TNs, trackpants, a polo/supreme shirt and a cap (to hide your ugly mullet). This clear assortment of clothing evocates a subconscious desire to fit into the dropkick eshay sub-group. It reflects a clear lack of critical thinking and herd-like mentality, evidenced by the mindless choice of consumerist branding that objectively looks terrible.
- 2. Your wardrobe consists of a small assortment of neutral colours, designer clothing and shoes that aren't expensive but up there, a series 7 apple watch (I'm talking minimalist). For the average minimalist, you are not really desiring to be apart of an "in-group" per say, rather, it is your mind subconsciously resisting a world that is complex and sophisticated, that is, you are chasing the ideal of a simple life through how you dress. This simple ideal is reflected in your simple personality: bland, boring and 2-dimensional, always choosing the least offensive option not with the intention of "maintaining" the status-quo, but fear of incurring its scrutiny. The conception of minimalism is rationalised through notions such as "subtraction" and "less is better", but all it reflects is a lack of unique perspective and the ideal of a world void of personality.
I could psychoanalyse every fashion style or clothing in existence, but the purpose of this clothing articulation is done. The main point being: consider what you wear as being a far deeper reflection of your subconscious desire. Who do you want to fit in with? What ideals do you seek? What does this illustrate about your personality? These are the types of questions you should ask yourself.
With that said, it is easier said than done. It is difficult to get a third-person perspective on yourself, and even the people who can psychoanalyse you can only do so on a basic level. But at least you will eventually be able to realise it in hindsight :). FYI, I used to be minimalist, and it is only upon further reflection I do realise what that represented about my intentions in this world.