Has Purchasing Rick Owens Made me a Hypocrite?
I finally got them. I had been eyeing the Rick Owens Ramones (Lows) for some time (about a year+) and I was finally able to get my hands on the elusive, arguably over-priced pair. Being granted a stimulus check by the government in hopes that I’d help circulate it and help jump-start the economy was the perfect opportunity to purchase these shoes from the UK. In my time researching various topics/photos to scrap together some mediocre blogs, I was able to find time to search the internet in hopes that these tiny-footed EU clowns would finally have a US12 in stock for a fair price. I say fair price, knowing that it’s still outrageous to spend the amount of money I did on a single pair of shoes.
See, I used to be a Sneakerhead who’d buy various Jordans and Ultraboosts that were rather elusive at the time. One day, I did some reflecting and I came to ask myself, what kind of hole in my heart was I trying to fill with these materialistic items? Turns out there was a decent amount at that time, so I sought to work on myself and inwardly fix any issues I’d had with myself. I decided that there wasn’t any sort of money that I could spend to fix any self-image issues or confidence that I’d had with myself at the time. I also realized that I had all these shoes, but would consistently only wear 3–4 of them, so what was the point?
As you might be able to see from some of my blogs, I do a fair amount of reflecting on my motives and actions. One of the first glaring issues was the realization that I am currently only wearing two pairs consistently! Like many, I am stuck in a total lockdown/quarantine so it’s a flip-flop between my Birkenstocks (yeah the clog ones that I get a lot of flak for but we both know they’re fire) and my running shoes that I run errands in. I certainly don’t need these high-fashion, upscale Converse do I? I suppose that it’s part of the long-term investment that I was considering when purchasing them in the first place.
It’s that investment that made me consider an aspect of myself that perhaps I had lost a tad bit of insight on. I think I have become more of a hypocrite in the sense that I feel like I might get a couple of compliments here and there on the shoes and might even be able to “flex” them on social media. The combination of the compliments and attention on social media are certainly going to help boost my ego, thus helping to make my day, right?
Since my time as a Sneakerhead, I realized that after one’s bare necessities for life are met, happiness truly comes from within. There’s no amount of material or compliments that are going to fix it. If you try, it becomes a never-ending search for more, newer, and better items. Peace, gratitude, and in turn happiness are never truly found. In that sense, maybe I had become a tad bit hypocritical? There was a small part of me that had hoped to gain a bit of attention from wearing them.
Still, I suppose that the purchase wasn’t a compulsive acquisition that would help fill some massive self-image issue. There wasn’t some large hole that I was needing to fill within myself. I view them as a versatile pair of shoes that I could wear with a good number of outfits and had heard last a good amount of time (years). I’d come to respect the design aspect of the shoes and it seemed like a decent investment as it could be one of those 3–4 pairs that I’d consistently wear for years to come; not just in the current lockdown state we are in. In theory, I would be completely fine if they somehow just disappeared into oblivion. Therefore, I suppose that I haven’t become some massive hypocrite, but just a smidge of one.
Anyway, I’m looking to cop some Dior B23’s and Off-White Jordan 1’s next so if you guys wouldn’t mind hitting my Venmo to support these well-thought-out purchases:
“The most important relationship that you will ever have is between you and you…… and you and Nick. Make sure you stay on his good side by complimenting my blogs, shoes, and liking/commenting on my social media posts”
Songs played while writing:
Soulection Radio (Episode 467)
J Balvin, Dua Lipa, Bad Bunny, & Tainy — Un Dia (One Day)
Dua Lipa — Future Nostalgia [Album]
