Who is that in the mirror?

“What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It’s about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it’s something that people have wanted forever.” – Seth Godin

I was recently talking to some friends about travelling and packing for a trip. One person said that she didn’t worry about which clothes matched when she travels as it was unlikely she would see anybody she knew.

That got me thinking about how we see ourselves. Who we dress for and what message we want to give out to the world by the way we look? Do we even think we are projecting a message? And if so what is the information we are trying to present?

“The only man we have any respect for is he who uses all the endowment he has and uses it until he bleeds.” – Martin H. Fischer

How we present ourselves helps notify others about who we are. It helps them see what we believe and what is important to us. One glance around and you know exactly where you are and where you stand. But the bottom line is that we do it because we all just want to belong.

A visitor to our planet would look at us and would see that we are all basically wearing costumes. Our clothes, our shoes, our hair or makeup, all the ways we present ourselves says something about us.

Our costume identifies our tribe. The motive is to show other tribe members we belong to their tribe and at the same time show everyone else that we are not a member of theirs.

The example of body art

I have been interested in both my and other people’s attitudes to the increasing numbers of people who now wear permanent body art or tattoos.  In my country now more than 1 in every 5 people wears tattoos. For many of us, this represents a sea change from 20 or 30 years ago when tattoos were virtually restricted to people in the armed services and people who had been in prison. This has an impact on how the tattooed project themselves and how other people may see them.

We can quite readily think of many tribes that we can immediately identify. We can see them everywhere, every day. And we have laws in some places preventing the wearing of the ‘uniform’ of some groups, gangs, for example. In all these cases we can see the whole process of belonging in action.

We can look at others, young people, for example, and see how the need to be accepted by a group is so important. It’s important to belong, to gain confidence and become more solid. To begin to become who we are. It takes steps, phases, and tribes.

And what about us? When we dress tomorrow morning and prepare for the day ahead how will we project ourselves? What will we be trying to say?

“There’s more to clothing than just adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves.”  – Jacqueline Carey

By Ron Trustin

Motivating baby boomers to see the world with fresh eyes.

Read more articles from Ron here.
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