looking into the facade that reflects the illusion

Anthony @ Bonbeach

What does the things we wear and the way we wear it say about us?
How much of it is an accurate reflection of who we or or what we want others to perceive of us?
What is it that we seek to control?
Just thinking upon these questions, makes me wonder if we use clothing, objects and artifacts to create an extra layer or filter of identity to the world.
Akin to a facade, by wearing a luxury brand may signify to the world you are wealthy, you have taste, maybe quality or bring a set of behaviours that may be associated with that brand.
It also gives your peers a shortcut into the set of prescribed rules/behaviours into how they relate to you.
If clothing helps determine what "tribe" you belong to, then what happens when that extra layer of material identity gets stripped away, and we are left but to look at the bare body or our focus may be the eyes of another human being.
What about with the knowledge that everyone else is also looking at you -- how self conscious of the state of your body would you be? or the filters that normally get applied to others, in turn comes realised to the one looking back the mirror? How confronted will you be?
That unconscious desire for physical perfection, to be godlike perpetrated by advertising that floods our visual senses daily. This dream of an impossible beauty by consuming whatever is being sold.
If this is the norm than what is the alternative? to barricade oneself from media or cityscapes and hang out in the mountains?

How can one manage this, or at the very least bring the unconscious conscious? What about children growing up in such a media soaked environment, the advent of a "poser" generation is more likely with access to cheap digital recording tools.

Some of my ideas:
Turn off TV, pack your bags and get out of the city for a bit and find other beauty that nature offers, read a book rather than your gossip magazine, practise conversation rather than wait passively for entertainment to engage your thoughts or just stop thinking so much and be aware of or curious about everything around you