Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2005 Summer Issue -- Image is Everything

It’s a little bit funny to hear quips such as: “Image is everything.” It’s obviously not true. The overstatement, however, is intentional. You are not supposed to actually believe that image really is everything. You are supposed to be skeptical of this claim, but playfully skeptical. It’s like a ridiculous joke that you go along with just for the fun of it.

Yet, the person, corporation, philosopher (whomever) making the ridiculous claim knows that you are both skeptical and playful. And since they know this, they chunk out an obvious violation of your common sense, thereby making you think you are smart to strain it out without even trying. But in so doing, your defenses are subverted, and some of the message that you do not believe actually integrates into your being. But since you believe that you don’t believe this, you have allowed yourself to believe it just a little bit. Maybe not wholesale, but enough to eventually buy a camera, a soda, a burger, or a car you can’t afford, a house you don’t need…etc.

In America, we live in a consumer ghetto. The driving force of our culture is to get you to consume more and more. The more you consume, the more that needs to be produced. The economy needs you to consume in order to perpetuate itself. Consumerism is the new patriotism. That’s not me just popping off either, our own president told Americans that their best response to 9-11 was to go shopping.

So, in order to continue the American economic machine, we must become better and more obedient consumers. So, to make this happen, the market gets sophisticated in its efforts to create more effective consumers. The market has learned that what drives consumption is a promise of satisfaction that must follow a delicate balance. On the one hand, satisfaction needs to appear attainable, but on the other hand it needs actually to be just out of reach.

We live constantly in this tension. If Americans do become satisfied, the market will crash because the demand for everything will diminish. However, if Americans become discouraged and give up trying to get some satisfaction, the market will crash because it has nothing to offer a hopeless person who is committed to their hopelessness. So, the market flirts with consumers, teases them, making them belief they’ll get something when they never will. Yeah, it’s like that bad relationship that is so intoxicating and so elusive at the same time. “She’s (he’s) really hot and waves at me across the room, but when I go over to the other side of the room, she’s (he’s) gone.”

This market driven process of promising satisfaction, but denying it at the same time, drives one from the depths of their soul to the surface of their senses. It is this promise that draws us away from our true image of God to the image of the world. The world is a surface place and its tendencies draw us to the surface – and thus, we become like it. In so doing, we abandon our soul.

You see, people who are content to stay deep, residing in their soul, resting satisfied in their image God made them to be – these people are invulnerable to the promises of the market. They are not drawn out. Instead, these people remain deep. It’s not that they isolate themselves from the pleasures of the senses, but rather they appreciate the senses so much that each and every experience of the senses is one to be cherished. People residing on the surface blow through experiences of the senses quickly and immediately ask when the next one will come.

It’s like this: To the addict, wine is a prostitute – useful for constant gratifications, but no real connection. To the deep soul, wine is an embrace from a long committed spouse. It’s not that the person who remains deep and near the soul is repulsed by the senses, but rather is awed by them.

So, how does one stay deep in a surface world?

The good news is that the answer does not lie in becoming a monk or a nun. Anyone can be a deep person. A good place to start is to become aware where you are. How deep are you now? What draws you to the surface? When is it easiest to believe that image is everything, even though you believe you don’t believe it?

After gaining the ability to become aware of your depth, no matter how deep it is, the next step would be to go deeper, by savoring what the senses offer you rather than hurriedly consuming them. In other words, slow down. You don’t need to be everywhere doing everything all the time. Just because something is new and improved is no reason to go out and get a bunch of it. Taco Bell only has five ingredients; how could they really offer anything new?

Another way to go deep is to be quiet some times. Be alone sometimes. Fast every now and again. Read a Psalm and then think about for ten quiet minutes. Replace speed with slowness. Replace frantic with calm. Replace rush with contemplation.

And now, one last way to go deep: Serve. Find someone who needs help and help them like one friend would help another. The reason I say to help like a friend would because Christians all too often help from a posture of superiority, as if to say, “Here I am to save the day you poor pathetic, person. How could you ever live without me?” Service must always be accompanied with humility.

Finally, the deeper you go the more you will find that satisfaction is not about gratification. Stay deep long enough and you will learn to trust this truth. The longer you stay deep the more regrettable and desperate the promises of the market will sound. Your attraction to the market will disappear. When that happens, you will be able to engage the market without becoming its slave.

: For a related article on living life as it is, see: "This is Life, So Live It!"

Chris Gonzalez is a marriage and family therapist and freelance writer living in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He is married, with two children and has a masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and a bachelors degree in English Education and relentless thirst to learn more. Also, look for his previous articles in our archives.