Zurich airport has 3 check-in zones with 160 check-in desks. The desk for AEGEAN is somewhere in terminal 2. Searching for it for the first time on a dark late January afternoon turned out to be somewhat difficult. Luckily, I saw in front of a desk a bunch of people with sun glasses. Following my intuition I realized very soon that I had come to the right place. Now, I don’t say I was the only passenger on that flight to Athens not wearing sun glasses. But I can safely claim that I belonged to a minority. And I can say the same when it comes to the trip with the metro from Athens airport to the center. The closer the train came to the city the more people with sun glasses entered the wagons. The assumption was close at hands that commuters did not had the time yet to take off their sunglasses when coming out of the bright sunlight and into the neon light of the station. There was, of course, no daylight anymore at all.
To cut a long story short: it seems as if Greeks are crazy for sunglasses. A mild mannered explanation for this obsession would be that Greece is blessed with the Mediterranean sun, and that people want to protect their eyes. But people are wearing sunglasses all year around. One can see them even on rainy winter days on the streets, in public transportation, or in places such as banks, hospitals, supermarkets or shopping malls with their sun glasses.
Do they feel insecure or naked without them? In order to understand why Greeks obviously can’t exist without sun glasses one has to look at this phenomena for a second from a completely different point of view. I have, to start with, used the word “people” three times by now. But what exactly do we mean when we use the word “people”? That depends on whom we ask. Left-wingers, for instance, share among each other the romantic conviction that the “people” are oppressed, and that left wing views are a mouthpiece of the “people”. Don’t worry! I’ll not waste my time discussing left-wing nonsense.
Instead, I would very much like to show you a picture. Look for a moment at “the people” out there on the streets and at their working places. Do you see them? If your answer is yes you are kindly invited to tell me how they look like.
I know, that’s a rather difficult question. You could say, well, they look more or less how all people look like. In order to be a little bit more precise you could say that people simply look like you and me. That they look like you and me is certainly not far away from the truth. The truth, however, is never comfortable. And therefore, another, and somewhat uncomfortable question comes up. It’s a question you might have never asked yourself before. Please tell me if you could make a living just because you look like the way you do?
Honestly speaking, no one would give me money for my face. I couldn’t sell it. And the fact that you are reading my blog, instead of parking your Ferrari right now outside a Hollywood studio is the empirical evidence that both of us belong to the “people”. With other words you and me we belong to a majority of individuals who’ll never ever get
any cash for the way they look like. Hollywood stars and top models, on the other hand, are in comparison to you and me in an aesthetic paradise. They look really good. They are permanently surrounded by other good looking individuals. They get a preferential treatment wherever they go, and, last not least, they get filthy rich just for having a particular type of face.
Not being a Hollywood star is certainly a great misfortune. At least, that’s how I feel. This misfortune is even greater when one has a really hard time to make ends meet. Capitalism, on the other hand, is a wonderful system that can solve all our problems. It is a system capable of replacing feelings of low self-worth with unlimited euphoria. And at this point I come back to the sun glasses! Sun glasses are definitely not a fashion accessory. They function on a psychological, or better to say therapeutic level. They are a crutch for the face. They provide a recognizable, external face for faceless people.
Generally, this is what LOOKISM is all about. LOOKISM, by definition, is the aesthetic improvement of our external appearance in order to get preferential treatment from others. The better we look, the more we can expect to get in our private and professional life. It’s as simple as that. Only shitty looking left-wingers and Jesus freaks are disputing this eternal truth.
Therefore, one is on the right side of life if one is doing everything possible in order to look like all these adorable existences in fashion- and lifestyle magazines. I know, it’s not an easy thing to look like a celebrity. One has to invest some money to reach this point. Nothing is for free in life. But I can assure you that even the most costly efforts combined with sky high credit card debts have a rewarding outcome at the end. Our real good time in this life has come when we sit reasonably slim, fashionably dressed, with a nice watch, an equally nice haircut and flashy sun glasses in a really expensive coffee shop.
When we exhibit ourselves like the young gentleman on this photo then “people” can see what we really are. The waitress and everyone else will understand immediately what we deserve. We deserve to be treated the way we look like. Don’t we?
Generally, there is nothing to worry when we are looking good. As long we are looking good, the world will be good to us. Besides, we should never forget the real meaning of LOOKISM. LOOKISM tells us that the most important thing we have to do in life is to maintain our self-worth by buying expensive stuff that suits us. And speaking for myself, I’m on the right path in that respect. Personally, I always feel that I have my feet on the ground and keep reaching to the stars when entering a shopping mall with my sun glasses.
Now, what has all this to do with Greek babies? That they are born with sun glasses is not very likely. It was just a figure of speech illustrating the madness for sun glasses in Greece. Significantly, some young mainstream Athenians who had died recently in traffic accidents have been laid to rest on cemeteries with their sun glasses on.
