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Personal adornment reflection

My personal beliefs and values are supported by my dress and body adornment. Sometimes I wear jewelry that represents my individuality  and sometimes I wear symbols of my religiousness and spirituality, like a temporary tattoo of an image of a dragon for example. For me it represents freedom, strength, independence and discipline. These values are very important for me. I also wear t-shirts with the image of a tiger, because this animal represents dignity, courage and fierceness and these values are, in my opinion, necessary to survive in the modern world.

I also like to be mainstream, so I wear jeans like many other people of all ages. That is something comfortable and is also, because of its origin, related to democracy and cosmopolitism as well, because when you look a people in the streets anywhere in the world, most of them will be wearing jeans.

Sometimes I wear shirts with buttons, when I want to represent the serious and hard-working side of myself. I think that people believe that a person is reliable, stable, decisive, honest and responsible, if they wear formal clothes. I think that it is a common belief.

For my leisure moments, I can dress alternatively as well. I could use temporary hair color and wear biker boots and leather jacket with Ray- Ban sunglasses, if I want people to see me as a free-spirited and a bit rebellious person, who will stand up for his rights.

This has changed over the years in the was that it dawned on me that I do not have to dress alternatively in order to show that I am an individual. Now, as I am older, I know that my behavior will show who I am as long as I am clean and in order. Cleanliness and orderliness are the values I appreciate. In my younger years, I paid less attention to what I was wearing, but serving in military for almost two years has taught me that content really is over form, but that a person has to be disciplined and ready for teamwork, collaboration and cooperation. I think that there is no place for self-consciousness and that everyone should accept themselves the way they are. No clothes can substitute personal values and beliefs if a person doesn’t have them incorporated in their spirit, if they are not part of their being.

The core beliefs and values in my family were and are: commitment, personal growth, punctuality, reliability, self-discipline, stability, success, decisiveness, creativity, continuous improvement, fairness, democracy, freedom, generosity etc. I have already mentioned some of these, and what is common among them is that they are all very important to be a person of high moral character. There are also other values that are less “serious”, but equally important like: fun, joy, happiness, friendship, pleasure etc. Both kinds of these values and beliefs are in my family crucial for a person to be a healthy adult individual.

The core beliefs and values in my peer community are individuality, freedom, democracy, friendship, equality, fun, integrity, tolerance etc. The last one, tolerance is the one I notice most of the time, because I come from another culture and everyone treats me as an equal and individual. Actually, we learn from each other. There are students from all over the world, from different cultural backgrounds in my university and we are all friends and respect each other. We have similar taste in music, food and art. We have similar life styles and we enjoy talking to each other about our differences, because, from the anthropological and philosophical points of view, these differences are very interesting. We live in harmony and that is a value that we all appreciate as well.

Member of my peer community are diverse. Some of them are mainstream, some are conservative in the way they dress and the others are trying to be different, they want to belong to such groups as “hipsters”, “punkers”, “rockers” and others. There are also people who are not very tolerant and are judgemental, but every society has such people. Not everyone can have high morals and not everyone comes from a family that took care of them and tried to bring them up to respect the others and their differences. In my opinion such people are not a major threat, but they might need psychological counseling in order not to accept themselves and the others more openly.

Members of my peer community dress according to their system of values. All of them are individuals and know that they can wear whatever makes them feel comfortable. However, as I have previously stated, being clean is not a choice, it is a matter of personal hygiene and therefore of health. Body adornment is optional. There are people with their body parts pierced, like their noses, eyebrows and tongues. Girls who tend to be popular pierce their belly buttons.

Many people work out in order to be attractive, but I think that it is also important for their health. Moderate exercise is every person’s need and every doctor recommends that.

Some members of my peer group have tattoos, and they wear them proudly. I feel that they want to show everyone what they stand for and that they can do whatever they want with their bodies.

All in all, I believe that every person has a right to be an individual and no one should judge them if it does not jeopardize the others.

REFLECTION

Artifact: People Watching in the street and the reflection about how my personal values and beliefs influence the way I dress.

This assignment made me realize how I judge people by the way they dress. I chose to analyze three women of different age and styles. Each of them was different and unique in many ways. I tried to perceive their personalities based on their appearances. That is always hard to do and sometimes even impossible because image rarely fully represents internal qualities of a person.

Every person has their own way of decorating body and that is a matter of choice and taste. Clothing also reflects education and the way a person was brought up. Everything comes from the family.

However, someone’s image can be deceitful because a one may want to represent themselves differently on purpose.

If someone wants to stand out from the crowd, it doesn’t have to be because they are different, it can be because it is the only way they can manipulate people into thinking they are different and unique.

Rebellious people usually have some jewelry that they wear in order to be recognized as members of a certain group. It is a matter of a wish to belong to a certain circle of friends who share the same beliefs and attitude towards life. Sometimes they use body alteration: “All of the forms of body alteration share a consciously constructed purpose for those who engage  in them. They are mechanisms of social communication” (Sanders 20).

One form of body alteration is tattooing. It is especially interesting for me because it is controversial. However, I agree with Ward McAllister who said that: “Society men in England were victims of circumstances when the Prince of Wales had his body tattooed. Like a flock of sheep driven by their master, they had to follow suit” (quoted in Parry 1971 [1933): 102).

Learning Goals for the Future:

I plan to read more texts about psychology that deal with personal adornment and body alteration. That is very interesting because I still have doubts why body adornment is so important to people when body is mortal. I have noticed that most people work more on their outsides than on their insides.

Works cited:

From Customizing the Body by C.R. Sanders. Temple University Press, 1989.

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