Status Anxiety is a choice
When you grow up you'll get a job and no doubt it'll make you dread waking up in the morning. I spent Summers working in building yards, factories and, worst of all, the horrors of a meat-paste processing plant.
During my mind-numbing existence I smoldered in resentment towards my "oppressors" - who were inevitably those who had been just like me, yet only 20 years earlier, but had stuck it out and worked their way up to line manager.
The irony of modern day wage slavery is that no one is "forced" into it. There are no modern day pirates ready to pressgang you into slavery. It's all in our head.
As you grow and are increasingly exposed to advertising, you will learn that it's repetitive message is a drip-drip-dripping that seduces you into believing you aren't "young/rich/popular/cool/handsome enough". As much as we castigate the hoodwinkery of the admen, we must also accept we too are complicit in these "mind forg'd manacles".
Ideology can only rule if, in the eyes of the masses, it rules without force. Coercion, therefore, is the key to acceptance. Ideology is embedded in textbooks, newspapers, TV, the internet and every other media that touches you on a daily basis meekly implying it only states "age old truths".
Notice how those whose world-view fails to accept the dominant ideology and how they are treated, excoriated and even demonized by the media; hippies, the unwashed, tree-huggers, tramps, heretics, wanderers, vagabonds, squatters, loners, ravers and freaks.
Those brave enough to stand up for change and for the individual were inevitably alienated and ridiculed by ideology; the stories of Martin Luther King, Siddartha Gautama (The Buddha), Gandhi, John Lennon and even Jesus Christ are stories of outsiders brave enough to recognize ideology is not immutable.
Just because no-one is physically forced to accept an idea doesn't mean it's persuasive might is any less tangible.
The naivety of youth persuades us that force is the road to resistance. Yet, wisdom teaches us that resistance is best exercised through choice. Just as Winston exercises his choice to enjoy the moment, enjoy nature in the ending sequence of George Orwell's 1984 we too have the ability to choose our own reality.
