Suit World

In the spirit of keeping my world manageable & tidy I do regularly have a clear out. So all my professional working clothes have now gone. (It took quite a while because they were expensive & had lots of wear left in them & I don't waste money.) I don't lead the sort of life now that requires me to wear a suit. Nowadays it's usually trousers & a top. The world rarely gets the opportunity to see my legs even.

When I wore suits & high heels I felt confident in my abilities to do my job & cope with most situations I faced. I wore jewellery, perfume & full makeup every time I went out. It's odd - at a time of my life when time was at a premium & I rushed from one thing to another, I found the time to do that. It was a part of the "me" I presented to the world. Now I rarely bother with makeup & my perfume will probably outlast me.

It's over 20 years since I got early retirement & I'm now in my late 60's. Then I was at my peak professionally & personally. The changes have been many but I find myself reflecting on the whole concept of "image".

When I was in my late teens & early twenties I believed passionately in issues. One belief was that what mattered was who & what you were, rather than what you wore or posessed. The most important thing about a person was their "moral compass" & their willingness to "stand up and be counted".

I still hold to those beliefs, but I now realise that what you wear & how you look does matter. We are all "judged" on the impression we present to the world. The judgements the world makes may very well not be right, but by then it's too late. So wonderful people can become part of the inconspicuous background & absolute pillocks can command respect because of what they wear & who they are.

Image has become a god of the 21st century. We are "sold" people. Politicians & "celebrities" are "marketed" by a PR machine. Even the language used is censored & presented.

Oh for real characters, people who don't give a toss about public approbation, but who have confidence in their point of view, even if it isn't "mainstream". People who are prepared to be unpopular because their views run counter to the accepted doctrine. People who are prepared to let the "gloss" slip and be themselves.

Superficiality rules! Wealth & power sells newspapers. Suit World is ascendant. I wish the ordinary folk everywhere would realise their power to really change this decadent world & make their voices heard. The divide between "Suit World" & ordinary people is a chasm & a void. Nature abhors a vacuum - we can already see the results of this around the world.