Author Archives: danijel

Status and recognition

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I don’t know if anyone even asks themselves why I’m writing this – about money, projections and desires. I mean, it’s obvious – it’s one of the fundamental problems everybody seems to have, and it’s recurring, and it never goes away for as long as you’re alive. It’s as pervasive as gravity. You can’t overstate it.

And yet, some people do overstate it, and make it into all there is, while others understate it and pretend it’s not a big deal.

Your place in society is important. It defines your level of access to resources. This, in turn, traditionally meant not only the difference between having food and shelter or not; it also meant the difference between being able to reproduce or not, and the difference between being protected at all cost, and being sent into the dark as the first one to die in a crisis. So, status symbols usually came with one’s position in society, and people learned to try to replicate and fake those, probably in order to confuse people into giving them more respect and resources than they would normally command. It works on people who don’t know you, but not on those who do.

So, obviously, everything that deals with your status in society is a matter of genetic programming, and you will instinctively try to make the best possible impression. However, overdoing it will ruin you and achieve the opposite.

To me, the entire thing is weird, because my instinct, and here I mean the true me, is to calm things down and try to be as understated as possible, in order not to intimidate or scare people. It took me a while to understand that here, in this body, in this world, this is a wasted effort, because most people won’t know or perceive anything about me anyway, and too much of an understated appearance is actually counterproductive. So, the thing about status symbols and perceptions is something I had to learn here, because I never had to, before.

Right reasons

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I’d just like to make one thing clear.

When one is suffering from material adversity, and they think material solutions are going to improve their situation, for instance they are cold during winter because they can’t afford heating, they are eating bad quality food or starving because they don’t have money, or they don’t have a good housing solution because they are destitute, they are more-less completely justified in their thinking. Money would indeed improve their situation, because the problem is caused by the lack of money. Materialism, in a sense of desiring things for their material properties, such as desiring a warm blanket when you’re cold or a good meal when you’re starving, will indeed solve a material problem. I’m not saying you should not desire material things for their material properties. It’s only reasonable to do so.

What I’m saying is, don’t desire material things for their abstract, ideal or spiritual properties, because that’s bullshit and a trap. Associating spiritual conditions with material conditions is a form of projection and bondage of spirit to the material world, and it’s a terrible idea.

Basically, it’s perfectly fine to want a car that is comfortable, fast, safe and durable. That’s what a car should be, as a physical object, and you’re perfectly reasonable to want one. The problem is when you associate ownership of a certain brand or model of a car with some spiritual state or achievement, and you think owning it will mean that you made it, that you attained success.

In fact, it’s going to have only its physical properties, and its brand-related social-status properties are going to have some effect, but never what you hope for or expect, and sometimes the exact opposite. Illusions of that kind are notoriously fickle.

Buying for the physical properties is, for instance, how I buy lenses. It’s a matter of how sharp, what aperture, how free of optical defects, how heavy, how well built, and how expensive. I make a list of all those properties and the winner is usually the lens that has the best image quality, but not at the expense of twice the mass and twice the money. It needs to be a reasonable balance of properties. Also, brand name doesn’t actually mean much to me. I owned so many brands of gear that I don’t care, but I will prefer the original manufacturer of the camera because of the possible incompatibilities of the electronics, because they are a thing, to the point that I recently had to replace Biljana’s Sigma 105mm EX DG OS HSM macro lens for Canon because the electronics were so glitchy or outright malfunctioning on her Canon RF system, that no amount of optical perfection could make up for the issues. It is one of the optically most perfect lenses I’ve seen, and it was replaced because it’s unreliable and possibly electronically faulty.

I don’t give a shit about mythical brands and their mythical properties. I care about tangibles, about actual performance and what I personally perceive of image quality. I care about the brand being well adopted in the professional circles, because then it’s going to continue to exist and the system isn’t going to die and force me to change it. Also, if it’s popular, the manufacturer is going to earn lots of money, and that means new good lenses and cameras. That’s why I avoid small exotic brands. Give me something that the professionals use as their bread and butter system; if it’s good for them, it will be good for me. And the ultimate test is going to be image quality. If I’m not getting the image quality I want, I’m going to dump it. If it works for me, I’ll be as happy as a hog in a field of corn.

And what brand name is on what, I don’t give a single shit. I used to have a Sony camera, Soligor macro extenders, Viltrox adapter and Canon lens as a singular working system. As long as I’m getting the results, it might be literally anything. Within reason, of course; I won’t buy something that’s better than what I need. Some specialist professional piece of gear that’s super expensive and designed for specialists with needs different from mine will be shrugged at and ignored. I won’t buy it just because it’s great, if it’s not great for my needs. I certainly won’t aspirationally buy Leica or Hasselblad just to look “serious”.

So, materialism, in a sense of buying physical objects for their physical properties and function. I heartily recommend it. Idealism, in a sense of aspirationally buying exclusive branded items for their elusive spiritual properties… fuck that.

Idealistic spending

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I was just thinking how a common interpretation of striving to attain things is that people believe things will bring them happiness. I don’t think this is what we are seeing. I think people buy things for their symbolism, and the entire thing is some kind of magical thinking, or even an unconscious magical ritual, where they think that, by putting symbols of success, wealth or fame onto themselves they will increasingly participate in the desired outcome.

In that sense, they are some sort of idealists, because they see things for their social and emotional value, not their material value, and I’m some sort of a materialist, because I buy things mostly for their physical utilitarian value. For instance, I buy coffee cups in order to drink coffee from them. I don’t care how fancy they are. They need to be the right size, nice enough shape and they need to be durable, inexpensive and locally available. All of those things are physical properties, and emotional or social significance of those cups is zero.

Nothing fancy.

However, when someone buys coffee cups from a fancy brand, and wants them to increase the perceived social standing of the household in the eyes of guests, they are doing it for the ideal, not material properties of the object.

I’m not saying I’m never buying things for their perceived meaning. I do, when it’s useful. For instance, when I need to maintain an impression in order to “pass” socially, I’ll buy a thing or two for their status symbolism, but I’ll try to be reasonable about it and not overspend. This, however, is also mostly functional, because I see the symbolism as part of the utility. I know how people think, what they perceive, what conclusions they will make, and I know what impression I want to make in order to have the least possible amount of issues. So, apparently, sometimes the symbolism of status is a commodity to be purchased.

But this is a completely different thing from believing that, if you buy enough expensive things, you will magically become more successful and wealthy. No; you’ll be poorer, because wasting money on depreciating symbolic assets doesn’t do absolutely anything, other than make people think you’re an idiot. There are people who are so obsessed with things, that you can precisely assess the amount of money they have by whether they bought some symbolic asset or not. For instance, if he didn’t buy a Rolex, you can tell for sure he has less money than the price of that Rolex, because he would have bought it even if he had exactly that much money and not a Euro more. If he had enough money to buy a Mercedes, he would have certainly bought it.

The concept that you can be rational and calculated about those things is, apparently, too much for some people. The “magical” power of material symbols is too great for them to resist, because they actually think this is the way you make progress. You buy Mercedes, wear Rolex and eat lobster all the way to material success. It’s insanity, but that’s how they think. I, on the other hand, think that status symbols are the fastest way to financial ruin, and one should avoid them as much as possible and instead act rationally and frugally, but within reason and until a point.

The limit of frugality, in my opinion, is respect for yourself, your work and your family. If you respect your family you won’t allow them to wear rags and look homeless. If you respect your work you will buy yourself good tools. Also, you will purchase sufficient symbols of status to shield your family from social pressures. So, status symbols are somewhat necessary and you can’t completely avoid them, but if you’re rational about it, they won’t cost you much more than purely utilitarian things of good quality. You just need to know what you’re doing and be purposeful and deliberate about it. Also, you need to avoid growing expenses to match and exceed your income, because that’s deadly.

For instance, there’s a pretty defined amount I’m willing to pay for a watch, regardless of how much money I have. I’ve heard statements that a watch should cost a month or two of your income, but I completely disagree with that. I would never buy a watch that expensive. Instead, my limit for a watch is my monthly budget for discretionary spending. Just think about it: a monthly income isn’t something you can recover in a month. You have expenses – rent, bills, food, fuel and so on. When you remove standard expenses from your income, the rest is what you can comfortably spend on something and not get yourself into trouble. In order to recover a full month of income, you need to pay it off from multiple months’ worth of discretionary spending budget, and depending on your actual numbers, that can be a very long time. So, if your discretionary budget is 10% of your income, it will take you 10 months of that to recover your monthly income, if you burned it on a watch. So, essentially, you’ll have to live on bare necessities for 10 months to pay for a gadget. You see how insane that “rule” is?

So, rather than defining “what I can afford” as the amount I can pay without dying, I define it as the amount I can pay without feeling any adverse effects. This means I can afford much less than people who will go into debt and destitution just to prove a fictitious point. I do, however, prefer having actual money, to creating an impression of having money. Impressions are sometimes useful, but it is my experience that they peak out very quickly.

Who desires God?

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I once heard a very offensive statement by a materialistic person, according to whom no wealthy and successful person ever cries for God; it’s always the losers of life who seek God as some kind of a compensation.

I don’t know where to even begin with this, because it’s untrue in every possible way. First of all, I can cite George Harrison as an example to the contrary. You can probably find a similar percentage of very wealthy and successful people who are deeply concerned over spiritual things, as you can in any other group. The problem is that in every group this percentage seems similar, and tiny.

Which is where we get to my main objection to that silly statement: almost nobody truly cares about God. Sick people desire health. Poor people desire wealth. Old people desire youth. Single people desire an ideal spouse. Unhappily married people desire a way out of their situation. Anonymous people desire fame. Famous people desire peace. Religious people usually desire social recognition and standing that comes from their religious activities. But who desires God? The percentage must be one in a million or less.

And within that percentage, I would bet that all are either in the presence of God, or are going to be.

Sheep in wolf’s clothing

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The reason why I avoided the typical trap of trying to appropriate the outward appearance of a spiritual person was very simple. They didn’t look anything like the goal; nothing like anything I wanted to be. So, if they are not something I want to be, it would be foolish to act like them or try to be one of them.

In the beginning, the most impressive spiritual people looked like something I would want to reach, but outward emulation was obviously not the way to approach that. So, in either case, trying to fake it out never seemed like a worthy approach. Instead, I was doing things no “spiritual person” would recognize as very spiritual, but I knew better – not because I’m that much smarter, but because I had help from above. I knew what to do because darshan of the Gods made it quite obvious.

Fake spiritual people are usually described as wolves in sheep’s clothing, and in some cases this description is quite apt. However, in most cases, they look like sheep pretending to be wolves. You see, when a person poses as a guru, the first thing I think of is to compare the feeling I get in their presence to the feeling I get in the presence of Goddess, or Lord Vishnu, and I can barely control laughter. Those “gurus” are for the most part just human souls slightly increased in depth and dimension by samadhi and similar spiritual states, but their soul structure is essentially human. The real thing feels different, and I don’t even know how to describe it. Imagine a difference between a guy who is trying to impress you with the fact that he bought a Porsche… and Mate Rimac. Imagine a difference between a small person trying to be big, and an incredibly huge person trying to look as normal as possible in order not to freak you out, but you still see the shadow of what’s not shown.

It would be wrong to say that all those “spiritual” humans are fake… but they are also definitely not the real thing, the way a hermit crab in a snail’s house isn’t a snail, but he’s also not fake. It’s a very genuine hermit crab. Also, for the most part those sheep trying to act like wolves have very obviously never seen a real “wolf”. They never saw a God in person, because that leaves a mark on you; it defines how you will approach spirituality, what you will see as sensible and pointless, what you will understand as the goal, and what you will discard as silly. If someone thinks a lion is something like a big dog, you know they never saw a lion. If they think a rhinoceros is something like a big cow with a single horn, you know they never saw the real thing. Seeing the real thing defines what you will consider as valid options. It defines your coordinate system, your frame of reference. It’s not merely a thing in the coordinate system, among other things, or an abstract idea. It redefines what everything else is.

God is not a big saint. God is a whole qualitatively different order of being. Humans trying to act saintly are not saints, because a saint is a wholly different order of being; a saint is someone who saw God, and this left a mark by transforming his entire frame of reference. A saint is not something who is “all good”. No, a saint is someone who saw what God is, and knows what everything else is in reference to That.

So, when a human tries to pretend to be a saint, or even worse, when a supremely silly human tries to pretend to be a God, I find it something between sad and funny.