I’ve been thinking about how I don’t care about the appearance or an illusion of a thing, and would rather have the thing itself, and how often people do the opposite – sacrifice a thing in order to have the appearance of it.

Perhaps that’s too abstract, but let’s take luxury goods as an example. Unlike what people tend to think, they are not something rich people buy because they can afford it. They are something middle class and actually poor people aspirationally buy in order to create an impression of wealth, thinking it will magically attract wealth into their lives if they appropriate its appearance, or something. And sure, there is a segment of rich people who also buy luxury goods in order to create the appearance that their lives are not empty and meaningless and that their wealth did actually help them achieve some worthwhile thing. However, most wealthy people invest in projects that are actually worthwhile, at least in their opinion. Traditionally, libraries, hospitals etc. bear names of their wealthy donors. They finance welfare projects for the poor, infrastructure, science and so on. Sure, they will buy a big mansion, yacht and jet plane, but the majority of their focus usually lies in making something lasting in the world they will be remembered for. Also, unlike the aspirational middle class, the people who think they will be perceived as belonging to the important class by wearing a Rolex and an expensive suit, the actually wealthy people are known by name. You get to be important by doing something that matters, not by puffing yourself up with status symbols that define your status – as that of a desperate wannabe social climber.

So, what do status symbols actually do? They convert actual money into appearance of wealth, and in the case of middle class people, they aggravate their actual financial situation by incurring debt and depleting their bank account instead of that money being invested into something that will actually help them – basically, if you want to improve your social standing, buying LVMH shares will do more for you than buying their products.

Cars are likely the worst, since they cost a significant portion of a real-estate purchase, they depreciate rapidly and need to be replaced with some regularity, and if you want to use a car as a status symbol, you’d have to refresh it every five years or less, and that will be such an impact to your finances, it might actually prevent you from achieving any worthy goals. The expensive cars are for people what Pleistocene tar pits were for wolves and sabretooth cats – an irresistibly attractive fatal thing where their bones get to be found at a later date.

In both cases – cars and luxury goods – you create an appearance of wealth at the cost of wealth itself. It is something that doesn’t matter if you’re so wealthy that this doesn’t actually cut into your wealth significantly, or at least no more than a good dinner cuts into the income of an average person. For instance, if the price of your car is your annual income, such a purchase is literally destroying your financial future. But if the price of your car is one or two months of your income, and you keep the car until the entirety of its useful life had been exhausted, this might be a reasonable and frugal purchase. But have this in mind: a very rich person will buy an expensive car for their pocket money. It will be a fraction of their monthly income. If you try to imitate them, you probably could, but you will have to financially destroy yourself in the attempt, and it will do absolutely nothing useful for you. It won’t make you rich, it will make you poorer. It won’t get you into the company of rich people where you’ll do business and become one of them. You’d still have to figure out how to do that regardless of the car. You’re buying an illusion of wealth at the cost of the actual thing.

There are things other than wealth where this applies as well – for instance, sacrificing happiness in order to obtain the illusion of it, but wealth is the easiest example. The most fatal one, however, is spiritual advancement, where one has to choose between the thing and appearance thereof very early on, and almost everybody chooses to appear spiritual. You can imagine what that looks like – read the right books so you know the lingo, be vegetarian, believe in karma and reincarnation, and so on. Add celibacy and poverty for the next level. Do that for twenty years, and you’re perceived as a genuine spiritual seeker. The problem is, not only did you achieve absolutely nothing of value in the spiritual sense; you achieved things that are making it impossible for you to even start. You made yourself into a circus act. And, most importantly, you have your “achievements” to defend as a matter of ego support structure, which means you won’t listen to good advice and change your stupid behaviour when someone like me tells you’re merely making a fool out of yourself. Essentially, you sacrificed the possibility of getting the real thing in order to obtain the appearance thereof.

Why do people do it?

Because it’s easy to copy the appearance of something; or, at least people think it is, if they believe they know what the real thing is supposed to look like, and in the case of spirituality, they absolutely don’t. They also have “magical thinking”, and they believe that if they become similar enough to something in appearance, this will make them more like that thing in substance. It’s a “cargo cult” mentality.

Let me tell you how you become rich. You do it by having more money and other assets. You don’t do it by having expensive shit on you. You become “spiritual” by having the soul structure and size of the angels and persons of God. It’s not done by trying to make yourself into a stereotypical cultist. I know that children learn by pretending to be, or at least they think they learn, and adults seemingly just keep this up but in the adult version, but it’s not working. It didn’t work for you when your were children, and it’s certainly not working for you as adults. Imitation is not a way of becoming – it’s a way of losing substance in order to obtain appearance. Just stop it.