When I was younger I remembered show and tell. I never had
anything to show, and I rarely had anything to tell. But my class-mates always
had some nice little thing, and it didn't bother me. I was always a clumsy and
absent minded kid (As I am a clumsy and absent minded 'adult') so all of my
cool toys were broken or last.
When you go to a friend’s house for the first time, what is
it like? You get a tour and the opportunity to see their big TV, what ever
collectibles they might have, and the furniture of their house. But is the
purpose of this little tour for you to see neet things and be enlightened, or
does your friend merely want you to tell them how cool they are for having nice
things?
Here's a fun game. Give them 0 praise on their nice things. See
how hard they will try just to get your praise.
How about this, Do you own something on display in your
house? How many hours of solitary entertainment has that given you? Do you just
sit in a chair and stare at your display case for hours?
And then of course there's Accolades.
Dictionary.com defines Accolade as "any award, honor,
or laudatory notice". In the ceremony of knighting someone, a blade is
placed on their shoulder by its flat end. This act was called an Accolade. It
has come to mean a reward or public notice of approval. An Accolade is not
something given in private between two people. It is a public display. A
trophy, A news Article, Gamer Score, High Score list, and so on.
So why do we need to have nice things to show our friends,
and why do we need accolades to represent our strengths. I have no fucking
clue, but that's never stopped me from blindly speculating before.
I'd have to say the answers are two fold.
1) People lie. Any douche-bag with gages and tattoos can
walk up to a girl and say he's in a great band. (I don't know why he had to
have gages and tattoos for this analogy, I also don't know why you need to keep
judging my analogies. But I digress.) You can't trust what people say, so we've
come to require some physical representation of their success.
2) People are rarely secure in their own personality. Most
people are secure in their abilities to do things. But people are rarely as
secure in their ability to entertain other people. Everyone has a friend who
feels the need to bring a 6-pack to every gathering, or provide food and drink
for everyone. Maybe that friend is just a very nice guy, and maybe I'm secretly
a midget wearing stilts and arm extensions. Does that friend every tell an
interesting story, or provide input on a debate?
This is a sort of Catch 22. Little Jessica at age 6 walks
around a party and everyone says to her "Oh look how cute you are" and
compliments her appearance. As Jessica grows up, she gets more compliments on
her appearance. She starts to get fat. No one ever told her how smart or witty,
or charming she was. So She sees that all she has is her appearance, and it
drivers her insane. This disorder is commonly diagnosed as: Being a Vapid slut.
Young children are still trying to figure out what is 'right' and 'wrong'. What
do you think is going to happen when you praise them on their physical
appearance? People look to others to understand themselves, especially children.
Show and Tell sounds to me like a contest of who has the nicer stuff.
Just so you know, any time I ever refer to a douche-bag he
will have gages and tattoos. But that is for another day.
