Walking my dog this morning, I saw a man in a very good suit getting into his banged up old car after leaving his small house, evidently on his way to work. The suit didn't match the car or the house, but I have a feeling it matched the surroundings of the office. And I wonder if the trappings of our corporate culture allow people the daily illusion that their lives are full of richness and elegance. I'll have to think about that some more because of course many people go to soul-deadening jobs and don't see any elegance to it at all, but there's a way in which the swankiness of the surroundings seems at odds with people's lives.
I remember when the company of a friend of mine had their annual holiday party or anniversary party and they had ordered a cake in the shape of the company logo from a fancy bakery--3 dimensional, not just the logo on top. There's something about all this, I can't get my mind around it. There's some seduction going on here, that "in my office I can be rich and elegant" while struggling to make ends meet. There was something about that man leaving his house before it was fully light, carefully wiping off the back windshield without messing up his fabulous suit that made me think that business is offering a fantasy of wealth that makes it hard to recognize where the truth lies.
More on this later, perhaps, as this thought is clearly only partially digested.
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