24 January

It’s not how powerful or wealthy people are, or how famous, that drives humans. It’s their relative rank, to other people. Their status. Status gives them an identity, they are ‘nobody’ without it. Begins in childhood, and never stops. Look around and you will see this, the organising principle for our entire lives, in every detail. Even the most ‘subjective’ things, like the music we like, is status games. Some say they escape it by living a more simple life, away from devices, fashions, lots of healthy outdoor time etc. That’s even more of a status game, all contrarian movements are even more obsessed with status than proud status-seekers. Those movements take *all* of their cues from the status-seekers, it’s their guidebook (they just do the opposite). Opposite isn’t freedom.