Fashion

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
Quentin Crisp

I have heard that the thing that really seperates humans from the apes is their love of teaching others. We learn a lot from each other. We are constantly teaching each other new things. But we get into trouble when we try to teach other people who they are, and more importantly who they should be. Our first mistake is to categorize and seperate different groups of people. Then we judge them according to some standard we have about who people should be and then make it clear whether they pass the test. Prejudices can arise very fast. But if we don't really understand who we are, how can we tell other people who they are?

Fashion is just a way of fitting into a certain group. Different groups adopt different fashions as a way of making themselves stand out from other groups. When we moved to a new state and my daughter went to a new high school, she was effectively cast out because she didn't wear the same brand of clothes as her classmates. She had to run out and buy a whole new wardrobe. She had to look like everyone else in order to belong in her peer group.

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are. It is people who are searching for an identity that grab onto the first one that is shown them. The fact that everyone around you is doing something makes it seem a good thing for you to do, even if it isn't. A clear example of this is street gangs. People who join street gangs are people who are lost emotionally and searching for something, a fashion, they can belong to.

If you really knew who you were, and all of your unique strengths and weaknesses, why would you want to be like all the others. You would be celebrating your originality. When you blindly follow fashion you lose your individuality. You become just like them. You exchange not knowing who you are for thinking you are someone you are not. But you still don't know who you really are. And now you no longer even think about it. After all, it is easier just to let others tell you who they think you are.