Dressing for Existence
I've been monkeying around with a reformulation of the classic adage "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have." I think it should be: "Dress for the existence you want, not the existence you have," but I'm also considering "Dress for the existence you're creating, not the existence you were given." What do people think?
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4 comments:
Dear sir,I have just discovered this blog and hope to read it regularly. As for your saying, I think you put it well.
Kind Regards
@YegorThanks for stopping by, Yegor. I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the future.
How "exist"ential...As a man who cares about the way I dress, I feel that you're onto something rather brilliant here with these revisions of that age-old quip.
I'm not sure if I should choose between the two options you provide; no less, if forced to choose I think I would go with the former: "the existence you want, not the existence you have." I choose this because I don't believe your second option allows space for reality. I don't believe it too be possible to "create existence," for this, I feel, is reserved for the Creator (a clear "Capital C" there...). We are unable to account for all variables in our existence: other people's opinions; market shifts; etc. However, we are able to account for our own opinion, thus providing great validity, value, and even utility to your first option of wanting rather than creating.
I feel both options you present create a similar result; therefore one, again, if deciding which to use, should base that decision on logic and reality which is why I have chosen the first.
I'd like to reiterate that these are two very interesting options you present as they are both philosophical and existential-good things for men pondering life's greater questions, and for men pondering how they make make "life better for other people."
Quality writing/thinking, good sir!
@Kyle GallienHey there, Kyle.
Thanks so much for dropping by, reading regularly, and taking the content here seriously enough to comment.
As to what you've said in response to this post, I should begin by mentioning that, as you know, I am a theist as well and so I share your predilection for speaking not only philosophically, but also theologically. I made the original post theologically-neutral, however, because I think both reformulations of the platitude are useful whether God exists or not.
But since you were mostly interested in the theological propriety (or impropriety) of my second formulation, that's what I'll address here. There are a number of things to say in this regard. First, both in this reply and in the original post, I intend the term "existence" to be taken in the roughly existential sense of being or life rather than in the more narrow sense of sentience. In other words, if your objection is that we humans are unable to take our "selves" out of the nothing whence we came and plop them into a womb (or anywhere else) and that, therefore, it doesn't make sense to speak of creating our own existence, then I'm with you, but this is not what I meant.
Rather, I was looking at our individual life trajectories as being something like works of art. What kind of people do we want to be? What kind of actions do we want to characterize our time in this world? What do we want from ourselves even if and especially when no one is watching us? Answering these sorts of questions and taking steps to fulfill the desires revealed thereby is what I mean by "creating our existence." We take a good look at ourselves and realize we're not what we want to be and so we put together a blueprint for what we do want and draw upon our resources to realize this vision.
But perhaps this was clear from the beginning and your objection is, instead, that only God fashions our characters or beings in this way. That is, he is the one who has the vision for our lives and "works all things together" for the realization of this good. On this view, God may, of course, share the vision with us, but, ultimately, "we are his workmanship," not our own. If this is your position, I wonder whether you would entertain the possibility that God is interested in a kind of co-creation, meaning he allows us to do some of the envisioning and implementing, without relinquishing either of these tasks to us completely.
Could that fly?
Thanks again for the comment. You raise an important point.
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