As we were driving home from school today, my brother asked a question of my father.
“Dad,” says he, “why do some people like to drive around in, like, big seven-and-nine seater jeeps and things?” My dad thought about this for a moment.
“Image.” he answered at last, almost mournfully. “They like to do it because they think it's 'cool'.” That is, I believe, characteristic of his entire mentality. My dad doesn't care what the world thinks about him. He kept bull's eyes in the fridge, sets his lab on fire periodically, and went through a phase where he didn't wash himself. The world can go screw itself, says he: image is not important.
And there is the crux of it. 'Image is not important.' Is it? Allow me to furnish us with another example. I happen to be in the possession of a rabbit, who lives in a small box in the back garden. I also love the goddamn furry white bundle of love to bits. Why? Well, let's take a look at this empirically. (Incidentally, if anyone could actually define 'empirically', I would be very grateful to them if they posted it in a comment. I suspect I have misused it. Anyway...)
Rabbits and humans have locked... er... ears, so's to speak, for generations: we have an built-in animosity towards each other. Rabbits, for their part, breed like... well... like rabbits, and fuel this growth on human crops, to the point where they have to build, for example, a rabbit-proof fence across half of Australia. In return for this, humans consider rabbits to be irritating pests and, occasionally, a delicious dinner.
Add to this the costs of keeping a pet. The aforementioned small wooden box is, in fact, a sizeable and well-appointed hutch which my father and I built with the collective sweat of our brows (metaphorically speaking). She goes through carrots like nothing you've ever seen and the rabbit food is hardly better. Add to that her complete and utter lack of hygiene which, apart from the revolting job of clearing out the hutch after her daily, costs us a newspaper, a handful of straw and scented sawdust every day.
And, as if that wasn't enough, this 'furry white bundle of love' is a spoilt bitch. I have more bites than an apple, my mother won't touch her for fear of her, she periodically urinates on my trousers (not a pleasant experience, believe me) and her ladyship will, when being held, only accept chocolate to eat. She particularly likes Aero bars.
So then, empirically (sic?) speaking, getting a rabbit was a very foolish decision and one I was guaranteed to regret within a very very short space of time. Yet I love her to bits. Why? One answer: image. Shave a bunny wabbit and no-one wants it any more. Ever wonder why the plain brown one always gets left behind in the shop? It has all to do with image.
And the same applies to human beings, which is what I was getting at if I've left you behind by this point. It has been scientifically proven that women especially judge people on their first sighting. It's wrong: unquestionably so. Yet that is how people are: they judge people not by their performance after a year's work or whatever, but by image. That's why you dress smartly going to a job interview or on a first date. If you don't look snazzy, no one'll want you, and trust me, in the world of capitalism, no-one wants to be the plain brown bunny left behind in the shop.
