The Buy Sell game
Each time you buy something, you sell something too. I buy a new shirt. I sell my money. Shopkeeper wants money more than shirt. I want shirt more than money. Exchange happens. Both of us are better off than before.
This transaction would be a wee bit unfair if either of us did not know what exactly we are giving......the challange of the other side of course is to underplay what it is getting and hype what it is giving....its a classic game of persuasion......its a game being played with you and me all the time....and even when the domain becomes intangibles, the buy-sell game continues....
Think about it - this post comes with its own agenda to pursuade....to put some of the views I acquired across to you.... if you buy into what I say you might change a few behaviours (which is what I might want you to do....) the game is on all the time......
So one of these many evenings when I was dwelling on the perrinieal question of how much money is enough money, I realised something.....
I realised that I was constantly transacting with popular culture.....and each time I bought into the culture, I had to pay....pay with my money and thus, my labour and freedom.....
I am happy with my 300 rupee jeans I bought at Indraprasth Shopping Center, Borivali Station (West). I see a hoarding...a sexy one... of levis jeans......I dont know what it is about but it is stark....stands out.....I see a few ads on TV......I see a few friends wearing Levis..... I finally decide to go and get my first pair of new and sexy, longer lasting and more comfortable Levis Jeans - 1600 bux.....the price increase somehow doesnt justify the increased utility phyiscally.... a lot of it has now become psychological.......
All this while levis has been pursuading me that its jeans is sexy....paying people to do that....paying channels to carry this message...paying MBAs to execute all of this........
The moment I buy into this idea, I have paid some money of my own.....and to pay money you need to have money....you need to earn it......
So I think back ..... the cost of buying in (not into a single brand of jeans but a whole pile of pop culture brands, ideas and products) is a lot of money that I will need.....and I will HAVE to earn that money......and to earn that money I will need a job that pays as much.....
So suddenly the focus shifts to finding a job that can pay my 'other party' - the ever growing so powerful popular culture.....and the cost of the buy in into that culture starts blurring other factors......and I try to pick a profession that gives me the huge ransom I need to pay popular culture to sustain it....to stay 'bought into' it......
(And in all probablity my job is in someway going to be to make someone else consume more.....PERSUADE someone else to buy into the popular culture.....force seemingly irrational collective agreements on whats 'cool' and whats 'hot')
Of course the excahnge is a valid one....just that the cause has shifted so distant from the effect taht I dont realise that the price of a shopping spree at Westside could be having to take up a certain job just because it pays more......
So I am not saying consumption is wrong.....nor am I saying that this culture is bad or anything....all I vouch for is a sense of awareness....an awareness that buying into popular culture has a price to pay......not directly translatable but the choice of having an I Pod or a Nariman Point flat is traded off ... .you buy it by giving away choices of free weekends or doing something you love.....
With that awareness is born a choice....a choice to not buy in for a change....as someone trying to take that choice I wanna share my experience briefly.....on one end it means that when your batch meets up and people are out with their 6600s, Blackberries and communicators, you need to confidently remove your 1100 knowing that it can make the same phone call.......it means that the label above your ass wont read "Scullers" and nor will your cuff have the arrow.....
And yet on the face of it, it may seem that, but at the back end you've saved up all that you'd have traded....... choices....... freedom to be.....to be satisfied with what you have (and still of course want more).......time......intangibles.........
Let that exchange be a concious one.....and if you can, once in a while walk up and face that culture. When it asks you to trade and you dont want to, just show it the middle finger and walk away. Its a hell of a lot of fun!
(cc) Abhishek Thakore
P.S : As an afterthought I want to touch on the popular culture at IIM B and how it makes you buy into ideas that some types of jobs are perfect for some type of people (sterotypes), some jobs are the best to have and some things are just not done........ going for an I banking job just becuase you have a high CG is like buying something just because you have the money to spend....... try not trade and see what happens....... i'll wait to hear your story.
This transaction would be a wee bit unfair if either of us did not know what exactly we are giving......the challange of the other side of course is to underplay what it is getting and hype what it is giving....its a classic game of persuasion......its a game being played with you and me all the time....and even when the domain becomes intangibles, the buy-sell game continues....
Think about it - this post comes with its own agenda to pursuade....to put some of the views I acquired across to you.... if you buy into what I say you might change a few behaviours (which is what I might want you to do....) the game is on all the time......
So one of these many evenings when I was dwelling on the perrinieal question of how much money is enough money, I realised something.....
I realised that I was constantly transacting with popular culture.....and each time I bought into the culture, I had to pay....pay with my money and thus, my labour and freedom.....
I am happy with my 300 rupee jeans I bought at Indraprasth Shopping Center, Borivali Station (West). I see a hoarding...a sexy one... of levis jeans......I dont know what it is about but it is stark....stands out.....I see a few ads on TV......I see a few friends wearing Levis..... I finally decide to go and get my first pair of new and sexy, longer lasting and more comfortable Levis Jeans - 1600 bux.....the price increase somehow doesnt justify the increased utility phyiscally.... a lot of it has now become psychological.......
All this while levis has been pursuading me that its jeans is sexy....paying people to do that....paying channels to carry this message...paying MBAs to execute all of this........
The moment I buy into this idea, I have paid some money of my own.....and to pay money you need to have money....you need to earn it......
So I think back ..... the cost of buying in (not into a single brand of jeans but a whole pile of pop culture brands, ideas and products) is a lot of money that I will need.....and I will HAVE to earn that money......and to earn that money I will need a job that pays as much.....
So suddenly the focus shifts to finding a job that can pay my 'other party' - the ever growing so powerful popular culture.....and the cost of the buy in into that culture starts blurring other factors......and I try to pick a profession that gives me the huge ransom I need to pay popular culture to sustain it....to stay 'bought into' it......
(And in all probablity my job is in someway going to be to make someone else consume more.....PERSUADE someone else to buy into the popular culture.....force seemingly irrational collective agreements on whats 'cool' and whats 'hot')
Of course the excahnge is a valid one....just that the cause has shifted so distant from the effect taht I dont realise that the price of a shopping spree at Westside could be having to take up a certain job just because it pays more......
So I am not saying consumption is wrong.....nor am I saying that this culture is bad or anything....all I vouch for is a sense of awareness....an awareness that buying into popular culture has a price to pay......not directly translatable but the choice of having an I Pod or a Nariman Point flat is traded off ... .you buy it by giving away choices of free weekends or doing something you love.....
With that awareness is born a choice....a choice to not buy in for a change....as someone trying to take that choice I wanna share my experience briefly.....on one end it means that when your batch meets up and people are out with their 6600s, Blackberries and communicators, you need to confidently remove your 1100 knowing that it can make the same phone call.......it means that the label above your ass wont read "Scullers" and nor will your cuff have the arrow.....
And yet on the face of it, it may seem that, but at the back end you've saved up all that you'd have traded....... choices....... freedom to be.....to be satisfied with what you have (and still of course want more).......time......intangibles.........
Let that exchange be a concious one.....and if you can, once in a while walk up and face that culture. When it asks you to trade and you dont want to, just show it the middle finger and walk away. Its a hell of a lot of fun!
(cc) Abhishek Thakore
P.S : As an afterthought I want to touch on the popular culture at IIM B and how it makes you buy into ideas that some types of jobs are perfect for some type of people (sterotypes), some jobs are the best to have and some things are just not done........ going for an I banking job just becuase you have a high CG is like buying something just because you have the money to spend....... try not trade and see what happens....... i'll wait to hear your story.
posted by The One at 11:41 PM
2 Comments:
I'm right now on an office floor where all are on the phone. They're delegating work to each other. Work that's boring or tedious is obviously delegated faster. Those who are new or uncertain suddenly get heavy mails with a 'hi please close this loop regards'..So this is another savage struggle...In synch with the struggle for money is the struggle for time: buy as much of it as you can, as cheap as you can, and often it will have to be in zero-sum games. Take them together and you get the strugggle for survival, for the right to mate ahead of another being, for the right for the continuity of your gene in a wilderness of genes...
Everything is psychological.
The world might see some person as mentally challenged and that very person sees the world as mentally challenged .
For everything is relative and everything an illusion, the key to happiness is to do what you enjoy doing and care a damn about the world.
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