In my life there hasn't been anything this dramatic, but white lies, for example, keeping mutual friends who don't like each other apart - these things exact an energy cost. You have to remember what you said to two different friend groups, etc. As I've gotten older I'm more honest, not necessarily out of a heightened respect for ethics, but just because it's not worth the trouble. The same can be said for literal appearance - styling hair, doing makeup.
I had to giggle, as there are always "those kind of people" all throughout history, but especially in the here and now. Individuals, or couples, who always attempt to to be better, have more, dress in more expensive clothes, drive more expensive cars, rent, or if able, buy more expensive houses (usually with a pool and a hired gardners, oops! THEY call them "landscapers" now, and have expensive furnishings, they may have even hired someone to care for their kids, but they wouldn't dare call them babysitters! They are Nannies (even if they aren't "live in", as most past, and historical Nannies were. ALL of this is NOT new, and was, once upon a time, referred to as "Keeping up with the Jones's" Whoever the mythical "Jones family" was. Today, if it has been replaced with another term, and that is called "upward mobility". I always laugh at that terminology, because, in reality, aren't 98% of us standing upward (we're not back to crawling on all fours yet, and WE are mobile, unless afflicted with a medical condition where we can not stand, or do not have two legs, (but we have wheelchairs, scooters, cars, etc. So in most respects we are pretty much all "upwardly mobile".
I don't buy into ANY fade, fakes, frauds, nor do I suffer fools. I have, as silly as it may sound, followed the creed, and example that was the embodiment of this old cartoon character, Popeye! As Popeye the Sailorman, if you're old enough to remember this Cartoon character, has always said, "I y'am what I y'am, and that's all that I y'am!"
Roxane, the pool house makes the family’s performance physically inescapable: every day they live inside evidence of the life they are pretending still surrounds them. Adam’s arrival raises the stakes since the lie begins recruiting another person into preserving the family’s preferred reflection of itself. That turns appearance into a form of shared labor, where belonging may depend on protecting the story everyone agrees to perform. Thank you for opening the discussion through the architecture of the house and the emotional function of the lie.
A friend of my father's lost almost everything and kept going to the same expensive restaurant he'd always gone to. He'd order an orange juice, which is a cheap drink in Brazil, and eat the free bread they put on every table. Best suit, best shoes, both of them visibly aging. If we were in the same room he wouldn't sit with us. I've never worked out whether that was dignity or something closer to shame, and I'm not sure the two come apart.
Just ordered a copy of Pool House. Thanks for the question, it pulled up something I hadn't thought about in years.
Most important is to not compare yourself to others. Stop looking out and stay with yourself..It’s difficult when you want to fit in and when you are authentically different as most people are, but if you can stay with it and cultivate this self you will save your old age. There’ll be few regrets..I love being with unique and real people..it’s like fresh air.
In my life there hasn't been anything this dramatic, but white lies, for example, keeping mutual friends who don't like each other apart - these things exact an energy cost. You have to remember what you said to two different friend groups, etc. As I've gotten older I'm more honest, not necessarily out of a heightened respect for ethics, but just because it's not worth the trouble. The same can be said for literal appearance - styling hair, doing makeup.
The beauty of realizing that the lies aren’t worth it.
I had to giggle, as there are always "those kind of people" all throughout history, but especially in the here and now. Individuals, or couples, who always attempt to to be better, have more, dress in more expensive clothes, drive more expensive cars, rent, or if able, buy more expensive houses (usually with a pool and a hired gardners, oops! THEY call them "landscapers" now, and have expensive furnishings, they may have even hired someone to care for their kids, but they wouldn't dare call them babysitters! They are Nannies (even if they aren't "live in", as most past, and historical Nannies were. ALL of this is NOT new, and was, once upon a time, referred to as "Keeping up with the Jones's" Whoever the mythical "Jones family" was. Today, if it has been replaced with another term, and that is called "upward mobility". I always laugh at that terminology, because, in reality, aren't 98% of us standing upward (we're not back to crawling on all fours yet, and WE are mobile, unless afflicted with a medical condition where we can not stand, or do not have two legs, (but we have wheelchairs, scooters, cars, etc. So in most respects we are pretty much all "upwardly mobile".
I don't buy into ANY fade, fakes, frauds, nor do I suffer fools. I have, as silly as it may sound, followed the creed, and example that was the embodiment of this old cartoon character, Popeye! As Popeye the Sailorman, if you're old enough to remember this Cartoon character, has always said, "I y'am what I y'am, and that's all that I y'am!"
It has worked wonderfully for me!
Roxane, the pool house makes the family’s performance physically inescapable: every day they live inside evidence of the life they are pretending still surrounds them. Adam’s arrival raises the stakes since the lie begins recruiting another person into preserving the family’s preferred reflection of itself. That turns appearance into a form of shared labor, where belonging may depend on protecting the story everyone agrees to perform. Thank you for opening the discussion through the architecture of the house and the emotional function of the lie.
A friend of my father's lost almost everything and kept going to the same expensive restaurant he'd always gone to. He'd order an orange juice, which is a cheap drink in Brazil, and eat the free bread they put on every table. Best suit, best shoes, both of them visibly aging. If we were in the same room he wouldn't sit with us. I've never worked out whether that was dignity or something closer to shame, and I'm not sure the two come apart.
Just ordered a copy of Pool House. Thanks for the question, it pulled up something I hadn't thought about in years.
Report lies!
Most important is to not compare yourself to others. Stop looking out and stay with yourself..It’s difficult when you want to fit in and when you are authentically different as most people are, but if you can stay with it and cultivate this self you will save your old age. There’ll be few regrets..I love being with unique and real people..it’s like fresh air.
Show up, it helps everyone!❤️
I’m only 34 pages in and thoroughly enjoying the wordsmithing. Choi’s descriptions are frequently just as amusing as they are original and exact.
Great question - I will have to give that one some serious thought!