billege

I have not yet read any of the above replies, and my response will be restrained to ART's question:
"What if we ARE what we look like?!"


My initial response is: What you think? Maybe? Duh!

I have the feeling we ARE a helluva lot like we look like. That's something I don't think many people like to think. I'm going to be brutally honest here, you can revile me all you like, but I've seen a little of what life has to offer, and this is my impression.

Fat people are lazy. OH SHIT!! I said it out loud. All of the fat people will flame the crap out of me know!! OH GOD HE SAID SOMETHING MEAN, AND BIASED, AND MADE A BLANKET GENERALIZATION.

Ahem.

I have had the pleasure of working with some big fat people. The biggest, is one of my good friends. He has a big heart, a decent mind, and the thing holding him back at most things he does, is his lazy attitude.
For him, 60% is good enough, and that's a bummer, but it's true.

I've supervised quite a few different types of people. The ones that come to me looking squared away, tend to be. The ones that don't make eye contact, slouch, are unkempt, tend to be lazy.

Before you burn me in the fires of righteous indignation, please heed the word "tend." I used it on purpose, it was not an accident.
I do preconceive, based on what I see, how I think a person will behave. That's not a sin, so get off the high horse. I do give everyone a chance to prove or disprove me. That's what makes me a smart guy, and not an asshole.
(You think you're not nicer to attractive people? Yeah, you're delusional if you think you aren't.)
I love to be proved wrong when I think someone is going to be a lazy ass. Problem is, I'm usually not.

I've made some very accurate calls about behavior based on looks.

With all the touting of looks as "an expression of one's self" you HAVE to accept it cuts both ways.

I've said what I'm going to say. I expect several knee jerk, nit picking responses.

My buddy has a gland problem, ad infinitum, ad nausium.

Try to remember what you know about me before you crucify me for discriminating against the disabled, that isn’t what I said.

It's just likely that the fat man is fat because he's lazy. Have you ever met a driven, highly productive, accomplished, morbidly obese person. I'm sure they exist, but that's the exception.

It's a scary thought, but we often are just what we look like. That's why we spend so much on trying to look the way we want people to think we are. It's admitting that the road runs two ways we don't want to think about.

Why in the world do you think advertisers spend $$$millions$$$ on making sure a brand of clothing has certain associations? It's so you, me, everybody, will buy that brand and hope they are radiating those associations? This is obvious stuff.

Teenage girls are a PERFECT example of this. "Lookie, I buy A&F so I'm hip, sexy, rich, etc. etc. etc." I don't see the dollar store labels jumping off the shelf, do you? Are the trendy kids at high schools across the country buying the cheapest stuff they can? I don't think so. They are buying the clothes that make them look the way they want people to think they are.

This cuts both ways. You present yourself as shit, within the accepted rules society hands out, and you might just be shit.
Society has some agreement as to what is good, and what is bad, one picks and chooses. Even if it's not deliberate. Even the "alternative" people accept that. Cookie cutter Goths across the country are a good example. They all want to embrace nonconformity a certain way, so they watch some Manson videos, and there you go. Now they are seen the way they want to be. They chose to give a certain look, and are likely just like all the other Goths, given a few "types" in each subgroup.

Trailer trash tends to look like trailer trash, stuck up people tend to look like stuck up people, there are no surprises here.


Now I'm wondering what I say about me...

__________________
I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."