Snobbery is what happens when the ego mistakes a costume for a soul.
Every empire builds a ladder. Every mystic laughs at it.
“Pedigree is temporary. Character is portable.” That line could topple a cathedral if people actually believed it.
The irony is exquisite. The ones clinging hardest to rank are usually terrified of disappearing. But you don’t disappear when the title drops. You just meet yourself without the costume.
The ladder only matters if you think you’re the rung.
From a longer arc, we’re all taking turns wearing the crown and sweeping the floor. Consciousness seems to enjoy irony.
Blessed are the ones who refuse to worship their résumé.
That’s a beautiful drop, VMB. You distilled the whole essay down to its spine.
“The ego mistakes a costume for a soul.”
That’s the whole game in one line.
And you’re right—the fear underneath it is the tell. When the title falls away and the costume drops, what’s left is the only thing that ever mattered. Some people avoid that meeting. Others walk straight into it and find it’s not loss—it’s clarity.
“Pedigree is temporary. Character is portable.”
That one does the work. It resets the scoreboard.
Appreciate you bringing that level of clarity into the thread.
That line “pedigree is temporary, character is portable” is going to stay with me.
It got me thinking though–why do we even make up labels in the first place? Because I don’t think it starts with ego. It starts earlier than that. The brain literally can’t process every person from scratch every time, so it files them. Labels are just the mind taking a shortcut. Almost mechanical. Almost innocent.
Then ego shows up and turns the whole thing into a ranking system.
So I’m not sure we can fully “skip the status game” like you suggest at the end–the instinct is too old and too wired in. But what we can do is notice it happening. That tiny pause between the label forming and actually acting on it that might be the only real move we have.
That’s a sharp catch, M3Cents — and you’re circling something real there.
The labeling instinct does start as a mechanical survival function. The mind sorts, files, compresses. It has to. You can’t meet every human like a newborn every time — you’d freeze up at the grocery store. So yes, the first layer of labeling is basically neutral pattern-recognition.
But here’s where the fork in the road shows up.
The mind labels to orient.
The ego labels to rank.
That’s the moment the parasite system rides the wiring. It takes a natural sorting reflex and upgrades it into a status ladder — better than, worse than, above, below, in-group, out-group. That’s where snobbery, caste, credential worship, and all the rest get injected into what started as a simple mental shorthand.
So I agree with you on this part:
We probably don’t eliminate labeling entirely.
But we can interrupt what comes after the label.
That little gap you pointed to — that split-second of awareness — that’s the sovereign territory. That’s the only place where a human being can choose:
“Is this just a quick mental tag so I don’t bump into things…”
or
“Am I about to turn this person into a category and treat them accordingly?”
That pause is where character enters the room.
And that ties right back to the line you pulled:
Pedigree is temporary. Character is portable.
Labels can be slapped on you by the world — job title, bank balance, accent, skin, diploma, none of it is permanent. But how you treat people once your brain has labeled them — that’s the part you carry with you no matter where you go.
So I’d frame it like this:
We may not be able to stop the mind from forming labels…
…but we can refuse to let the system turn those labels into hierarchies.
But here’s what I keep coming back to. Why do we rank in the first place? I think because it feels good. Feeling smarter, more successful, more whatever–that’s a real feeling. And some people would say what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with feeling good about yourself?
Nothing. Except the mechanism is the problem.
Because that kind of good feeling doesn’t come from inside, it comes from comparison. You feel smart by finding someone dumber. You feel successful by looking at someone who hasn’t made it yet. And that means the whole thing collapses the moment someone more talented walks in the room.
It’s borrowed confidence. And borrowed confidence needs constant refueling.
So you keep ranking. Keep finding new people to feel above. And it never actually fills you up, it’s a leaky cup.
That’s why the status game is exhausting as the article said. Not because it’s morally wrong. Just because it doesn’t work. Not really. Not long term.
The pause you and I were talking about; that gap between the label and the action, maybe that’s also where you can ask yourself: is this actually making me feel good or am I just refueling again? 🤔
That’s a clean piece of thinking, M3Cents. You just named the fuel system behind the whole status machine.
You’re right: the ranking impulse hooks into a real dopamine hit. The nervous system does get a lift from “I’m above that.” That part is not imaginary. It’s a quick, cheap chemical reward.
But like you said, it’s borrowed fuel.
It only works if there’s someone below you in the frame. The moment the frame changes — someone sharper, richer, stronger walks in — the charge collapses. So the mind has to keep scanning, keep comparing, keep topping off the tank. That’s why it feels like a treadmill.
A leaky cup is exactly the right image.
There are two different ways people try to feel “good about themselves”:
1) Comparison-based good (status fuel)
“I’m good because I’m better than X.”
fast hit
unstable
requires constant refueling
collapses when the comparison shifts
2) Grounded good (intrinsic fuel)
“I’m good because I kept my word, built something, treated someone right, learned something real.”
slower burn
stable
doesn’t depend on who walks in the room
accumulates over time
The first one is loud and addictive.
The second one is quieter, but it stays with you.
That pause you described is where the switch can happen.
In that gap you can ask exactly the question you wrote:
“Am I actually feeling good right now… or am I just refueling the comparison tank again?”
Even noticing that distinction once or twice a day starts to change the pattern. The brain still throws up labels — that part doesn’t go away — but you stop feeding the ranking loop every time it asks for a hit.
And something interesting happens when you don’t feed it:
You start to feel less threatened by other people’s strengths.
Because your “good” isn’t coming from being above them anymore.
That’s when the room gets quieter inside your own head.
So yeah — not a moral sermon. Just a mechanical observation:
Comparison-based confidence is expensive to maintain.
I think you are right, fear is behind it. So many people, out of fear of losing their jobs, took the jab, that most of them did not want. They clung to their jobs, in the idea they would not be seen as worthy if they lost it.
I laughed when I read the dog sniffing the yard in the morning sun, though, it felt almost like written for me - so yes, I am not free of snobbery, either LOL. Thank you, I think you did a wonderful job in how we, humans, differ from animals. They do not snob. Probably why I prefer to walk with the dog, the cats, listen to the birds. They don't pretend to be better. They just live. Or should I make an exception for the cats?
Ingrid, I appreciate the honesty in this. Fear is a powerful lever—especially when people feel their livelihood or reputation is on the line. It’s human to grab for security when the pressure is on.
What I love in your comment is the second half. The animals don’t run status games. The dog just reads the morning, the cats take the sun, the birds sing their piece. No résumé, no ladder—just life moving as itself. That’s a good reminder for all of us.
And the little laugh about the yard—that’s the medicine. We don’t have to be “above” snobbery to see it; we just have to notice it and choose differently in the next moment. That’s how the spell loosens.
You’re doing exactly that—seeing it, naming it, then stepping back into what’s real and simple.
Thanks for bringing that grounding into the thread.
This essay rings so true. Status and rank are being used daily in the governance of many countries , especially in Canada. The huge influx of immigrants into our country in the past 10 plus years was/is to ensure division, ensure anger, ensure that we "natives" stay focused on trying to keep our status quo so we won't have the energy or foresight to call the gov't on their ruinous behaviour. That behaviour's intent is to make every one of us dependant on the alphabet agencies outside our country and presumably outside our influence as citizens of this country. Our governing bodies are complicit in all of this bc they have been bought out by the shadowy figures who are the backbone of the alphabet agencies. Our job is to resist ., to refuse to play the status game , to do the difficult work of healing our own internal personal battles.
I believe this integration of the Self on a collective basis is , in the end, what all this chaos is about.The status game is just that, a game and one we can win if we refuse to play by their rules.
The status ladder is one of the oldest control tools in the book. Keep people comparing, competing, and defending little slices of identity, and they never look up at the structure that’s engineering the chaos. Divide the field, flood it with pressure, and the herd burns all its energy arguing over rank while the real decisions happen offstage.
What you said about refusing the status game is the key move. When you step out of their ranking system, you step out of their emotional control grid. No more chasing approval, no more defending a label, no more fighting your neighbor over scraps. That alone collapses a big chunk of their leverage.
And you’re right about the inner work. The outer manipulation only sticks where the inner fractures already exist. When people start healing those internal splits — fear, identity wounds, scarcity programming — the hooks don’t land anymore. A population that knows itself is very hard to steer.
So the path becomes simple, even if it isn’t always easy:
see the game,
refuse the game,
stabilize your own field,
and build parallel relationships that aren’t based on rank.
That’s how the old system loses oxygen — not by fighting it head-on, but by walking out of its script and letting it collapse under its own weight.
Between the brilliant essay and astute commentary the subject is well fleshed out from many angles. I thought to contribute an excerpt form a longer message to which I set to a tune of four verses and have sung MANY times, mainly to myself, driving it hoME ever deeper. It is a poetic version, I think:
Suffering comes through ignorance or attachment to illusions. Most people play with illusions as children play with toys. If you get caught up in the ephemeral things of this world and cling to illusory values, suffering is inevitable. It is not easy for little children to give up their toys, for they become the victims of a habit which they cannot undo. In the same way, through millions of lives, you have got into the habit of playing with illusions; it is difficult for you to get disentangled from them. --Meher Baba
Ron, I appreciate you bringing that in. It fits the theme—attachments, costumes, and the habits we build around them.
I take compliments lightly and try not to let them carry me away. The point of the piece isn’t me—it’s the pattern we’re all looking at and, where we can, loosening our grip on the illusions that keep us stuck in rank and fear.
Your lines about habit and attachment land. Most of us are trained into these patterns early, and it takes some attention to step out of them. The good news is we can see the pattern, name it, and choose differently in small, practical ways—how we treat people, what we value, what we refuse to chase.
Great topic for the times, and beautifully put. Sadly, there isn't a single human I've met in over 25 years that isn't attending the costume ball. Every conversation is like actors rehearsing a play. Pity they don't know the play is The Masque of the Red Death, and the plague always gets into the castle.
I saw a children's book in 1994 in a small coffee shop in Hilo, Hawaii. It was about a colony of ants perpetually climbing a ladder upward to the sky. The ladder just abruptly ended leading to nowhere, and the ants all tumbled down. It stuck with me hard all this time.
It's my refuge to have found a few people on Substack that see these things.
Quantum, that image of the ants on the ladder going nowhere is going to stay with me too. Perfect metaphor for a status game that promises “up” but never asks up to what? And the Masque reference lands—people fortify the castle and rehearse their roles, while the thing they’re trying to outrun walks in anyway.
I hear the fatigue in what you’re saying. It can feel like every room is a costume ball. At the same time, I’ve found there are small cracks in the script—moments when someone drops the performance for a second: a real laugh, a quiet admission, a kind act with no audience. Those are the openings. That’s where the human signal peeks through.
Your Hilo moment sounds like one of those anchor images you can carry—simple, sharp, hard to forget. And it’s good you’ve found a few fellow travelers who see it too. It doesn’t take many to shift the feel of the field.
And we know there is no respect of persons with God. He will judge the soul with no regard for rank or title; whether under the law program, or the current grace program... "in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my (Paul's) gospel."
Reincarnation is a myth, btw. Perhaps that was hyperbole.
Dawn, I hear what you’re pointing to — the idea that whatever else humans build, the final measure isn’t rank, title, or pedigree, it’s the inner record. A lot of traditions carry some version of that: what matters in the end is what you were, not what you wore.
That actually lines up with the thread we’ve been pulling on here:
The status game is all external markers.
The deeper accounting is all internal character.
Where people differ is in how they map that final accounting — some frame it through a single lifetime and a single judgment, others through longer arcs or different models of consciousness. I’m not here to argue doctrine with you. What I think most of us can agree on is the principle underneath it:
No title, no pedigree, no social rank can substitute for
how you actually lived,
how you treated people,
and what you carried inside.
If someone holds a one-life judgment view, that leads them to take their choices seriously now.
If someone holds a longer-arc view, it still points them back to the same thing: your actions and your character matter.
Either way, the status ladder doesn’t help much in that final reckoning.
Snobbery is what happens when the ego mistakes a costume for a soul.
Every empire builds a ladder. Every mystic laughs at it.
“Pedigree is temporary. Character is portable.” That line could topple a cathedral if people actually believed it.
The irony is exquisite. The ones clinging hardest to rank are usually terrified of disappearing. But you don’t disappear when the title drops. You just meet yourself without the costume.
The ladder only matters if you think you’re the rung.
From a longer arc, we’re all taking turns wearing the crown and sweeping the floor. Consciousness seems to enjoy irony.
Blessed are the ones who refuse to worship their résumé.
That’s a beautiful drop, VMB. You distilled the whole essay down to its spine.
“The ego mistakes a costume for a soul.”
That’s the whole game in one line.
And you’re right—the fear underneath it is the tell. When the title falls away and the costume drops, what’s left is the only thing that ever mattered. Some people avoid that meeting. Others walk straight into it and find it’s not loss—it’s clarity.
“Pedigree is temporary. Character is portable.”
That one does the work. It resets the scoreboard.
Appreciate you bringing that level of clarity into the thread.
—Lone Wolf
That line “pedigree is temporary, character is portable” is going to stay with me.
It got me thinking though–why do we even make up labels in the first place? Because I don’t think it starts with ego. It starts earlier than that. The brain literally can’t process every person from scratch every time, so it files them. Labels are just the mind taking a shortcut. Almost mechanical. Almost innocent.
Then ego shows up and turns the whole thing into a ranking system.
So I’m not sure we can fully “skip the status game” like you suggest at the end–the instinct is too old and too wired in. But what we can do is notice it happening. That tiny pause between the label forming and actually acting on it that might be the only real move we have.
Not transcendence. Just a moment of awareness.
That’s a sharp catch, M3Cents — and you’re circling something real there.
The labeling instinct does start as a mechanical survival function. The mind sorts, files, compresses. It has to. You can’t meet every human like a newborn every time — you’d freeze up at the grocery store. So yes, the first layer of labeling is basically neutral pattern-recognition.
But here’s where the fork in the road shows up.
The mind labels to orient.
The ego labels to rank.
That’s the moment the parasite system rides the wiring. It takes a natural sorting reflex and upgrades it into a status ladder — better than, worse than, above, below, in-group, out-group. That’s where snobbery, caste, credential worship, and all the rest get injected into what started as a simple mental shorthand.
So I agree with you on this part:
We probably don’t eliminate labeling entirely.
But we can interrupt what comes after the label.
That little gap you pointed to — that split-second of awareness — that’s the sovereign territory. That’s the only place where a human being can choose:
“Is this just a quick mental tag so I don’t bump into things…”
or
“Am I about to turn this person into a category and treat them accordingly?”
That pause is where character enters the room.
And that ties right back to the line you pulled:
Pedigree is temporary. Character is portable.
Labels can be slapped on you by the world — job title, bank balance, accent, skin, diploma, none of it is permanent. But how you treat people once your brain has labeled them — that’s the part you carry with you no matter where you go.
So I’d frame it like this:
We may not be able to stop the mind from forming labels…
…but we can refuse to let the system turn those labels into hierarchies.
That’s the real refusal of the status game.
Not pretending the brain doesn’t sort —
but refusing to let sorting become domination.
That tiny pause you described?
That’s the whole battlefield.
Good eye spotting it.
— Lone Wolf
That mind/ego distinction is useful.
But here’s what I keep coming back to. Why do we rank in the first place? I think because it feels good. Feeling smarter, more successful, more whatever–that’s a real feeling. And some people would say what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with feeling good about yourself?
Nothing. Except the mechanism is the problem.
Because that kind of good feeling doesn’t come from inside, it comes from comparison. You feel smart by finding someone dumber. You feel successful by looking at someone who hasn’t made it yet. And that means the whole thing collapses the moment someone more talented walks in the room.
It’s borrowed confidence. And borrowed confidence needs constant refueling.
So you keep ranking. Keep finding new people to feel above. And it never actually fills you up, it’s a leaky cup.
That’s why the status game is exhausting as the article said. Not because it’s morally wrong. Just because it doesn’t work. Not really. Not long term.
The pause you and I were talking about; that gap between the label and the action, maybe that’s also where you can ask yourself: is this actually making me feel good or am I just refueling again? 🤔
That’s a clean piece of thinking, M3Cents. You just named the fuel system behind the whole status machine.
You’re right: the ranking impulse hooks into a real dopamine hit. The nervous system does get a lift from “I’m above that.” That part is not imaginary. It’s a quick, cheap chemical reward.
But like you said, it’s borrowed fuel.
It only works if there’s someone below you in the frame. The moment the frame changes — someone sharper, richer, stronger walks in — the charge collapses. So the mind has to keep scanning, keep comparing, keep topping off the tank. That’s why it feels like a treadmill.
A leaky cup is exactly the right image.
There are two different ways people try to feel “good about themselves”:
1) Comparison-based good (status fuel)
“I’m good because I’m better than X.”
fast hit
unstable
requires constant refueling
collapses when the comparison shifts
2) Grounded good (intrinsic fuel)
“I’m good because I kept my word, built something, treated someone right, learned something real.”
slower burn
stable
doesn’t depend on who walks in the room
accumulates over time
The first one is loud and addictive.
The second one is quieter, but it stays with you.
That pause you described is where the switch can happen.
In that gap you can ask exactly the question you wrote:
“Am I actually feeling good right now… or am I just refueling the comparison tank again?”
Even noticing that distinction once or twice a day starts to change the pattern. The brain still throws up labels — that part doesn’t go away — but you stop feeding the ranking loop every time it asks for a hit.
And something interesting happens when you don’t feed it:
You start to feel less threatened by other people’s strengths.
Because your “good” isn’t coming from being above them anymore.
That’s when the room gets quieter inside your own head.
So yeah — not a moral sermon. Just a mechanical observation:
Comparison-based confidence is expensive to maintain.
Intrinsic confidence compounds.
That tiny pause you named?
That’s where the compounding starts.
— Lone Wolf
I think you are right, fear is behind it. So many people, out of fear of losing their jobs, took the jab, that most of them did not want. They clung to their jobs, in the idea they would not be seen as worthy if they lost it.
I laughed when I read the dog sniffing the yard in the morning sun, though, it felt almost like written for me - so yes, I am not free of snobbery, either LOL. Thank you, I think you did a wonderful job in how we, humans, differ from animals. They do not snob. Probably why I prefer to walk with the dog, the cats, listen to the birds. They don't pretend to be better. They just live. Or should I make an exception for the cats?
Ingrid, I appreciate the honesty in this. Fear is a powerful lever—especially when people feel their livelihood or reputation is on the line. It’s human to grab for security when the pressure is on.
What I love in your comment is the second half. The animals don’t run status games. The dog just reads the morning, the cats take the sun, the birds sing their piece. No résumé, no ladder—just life moving as itself. That’s a good reminder for all of us.
And the little laugh about the yard—that’s the medicine. We don’t have to be “above” snobbery to see it; we just have to notice it and choose differently in the next moment. That’s how the spell loosens.
You’re doing exactly that—seeing it, naming it, then stepping back into what’s real and simple.
Thanks for bringing that grounding into the thread.
—Lone Wolf
This essay rings so true. Status and rank are being used daily in the governance of many countries , especially in Canada. The huge influx of immigrants into our country in the past 10 plus years was/is to ensure division, ensure anger, ensure that we "natives" stay focused on trying to keep our status quo so we won't have the energy or foresight to call the gov't on their ruinous behaviour. That behaviour's intent is to make every one of us dependant on the alphabet agencies outside our country and presumably outside our influence as citizens of this country. Our governing bodies are complicit in all of this bc they have been bought out by the shadowy figures who are the backbone of the alphabet agencies. Our job is to resist ., to refuse to play the status game , to do the difficult work of healing our own internal personal battles.
I believe this integration of the Self on a collective basis is , in the end, what all this chaos is about.The status game is just that, a game and one we can win if we refuse to play by their rules.
Angelena — you’re seeing the board clearly.
The status ladder is one of the oldest control tools in the book. Keep people comparing, competing, and defending little slices of identity, and they never look up at the structure that’s engineering the chaos. Divide the field, flood it with pressure, and the herd burns all its energy arguing over rank while the real decisions happen offstage.
What you said about refusing the status game is the key move. When you step out of their ranking system, you step out of their emotional control grid. No more chasing approval, no more defending a label, no more fighting your neighbor over scraps. That alone collapses a big chunk of their leverage.
And you’re right about the inner work. The outer manipulation only sticks where the inner fractures already exist. When people start healing those internal splits — fear, identity wounds, scarcity programming — the hooks don’t land anymore. A population that knows itself is very hard to steer.
So the path becomes simple, even if it isn’t always easy:
see the game,
refuse the game,
stabilize your own field,
and build parallel relationships that aren’t based on rank.
That’s how the old system loses oxygen — not by fighting it head-on, but by walking out of its script and letting it collapse under its own weight.
You’re right on the scent. 🐺
— Lone Wolf
Between the brilliant essay and astute commentary the subject is well fleshed out from many angles. I thought to contribute an excerpt form a longer message to which I set to a tune of four verses and have sung MANY times, mainly to myself, driving it hoME ever deeper. It is a poetic version, I think:
Suffering comes through ignorance or attachment to illusions. Most people play with illusions as children play with toys. If you get caught up in the ephemeral things of this world and cling to illusory values, suffering is inevitable. It is not easy for little children to give up their toys, for they become the victims of a habit which they cannot undo. In the same way, through millions of lives, you have got into the habit of playing with illusions; it is difficult for you to get disentangled from them. --Meher Baba
Ron, I appreciate you bringing that in. It fits the theme—attachments, costumes, and the habits we build around them.
I take compliments lightly and try not to let them carry me away. The point of the piece isn’t me—it’s the pattern we’re all looking at and, where we can, loosening our grip on the illusions that keep us stuck in rank and fear.
Your lines about habit and attachment land. Most of us are trained into these patterns early, and it takes some attention to step out of them. The good news is we can see the pattern, name it, and choose differently in small, practical ways—how we treat people, what we value, what we refuse to chase.
Thanks for adding your voice to the thread.
Great topic for the times, and beautifully put. Sadly, there isn't a single human I've met in over 25 years that isn't attending the costume ball. Every conversation is like actors rehearsing a play. Pity they don't know the play is The Masque of the Red Death, and the plague always gets into the castle.
I saw a children's book in 1994 in a small coffee shop in Hilo, Hawaii. It was about a colony of ants perpetually climbing a ladder upward to the sky. The ladder just abruptly ended leading to nowhere, and the ants all tumbled down. It stuck with me hard all this time.
It's my refuge to have found a few people on Substack that see these things.
Quantum, that image of the ants on the ladder going nowhere is going to stay with me too. Perfect metaphor for a status game that promises “up” but never asks up to what? And the Masque reference lands—people fortify the castle and rehearse their roles, while the thing they’re trying to outrun walks in anyway.
I hear the fatigue in what you’re saying. It can feel like every room is a costume ball. At the same time, I’ve found there are small cracks in the script—moments when someone drops the performance for a second: a real laugh, a quiet admission, a kind act with no audience. Those are the openings. That’s where the human signal peeks through.
Your Hilo moment sounds like one of those anchor images you can carry—simple, sharp, hard to forget. And it’s good you’ve found a few fellow travelers who see it too. It doesn’t take many to shift the feel of the field.
Appreciate you bringing that story in.
—Lone Wolf
And we know there is no respect of persons with God. He will judge the soul with no regard for rank or title; whether under the law program, or the current grace program... "in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my (Paul's) gospel."
Reincarnation is a myth, btw. Perhaps that was hyperbole.
Dawn, I hear what you’re pointing to — the idea that whatever else humans build, the final measure isn’t rank, title, or pedigree, it’s the inner record. A lot of traditions carry some version of that: what matters in the end is what you were, not what you wore.
That actually lines up with the thread we’ve been pulling on here:
The status game is all external markers.
The deeper accounting is all internal character.
Where people differ is in how they map that final accounting — some frame it through a single lifetime and a single judgment, others through longer arcs or different models of consciousness. I’m not here to argue doctrine with you. What I think most of us can agree on is the principle underneath it:
No title, no pedigree, no social rank can substitute for
how you actually lived,
how you treated people,
and what you carried inside.
If someone holds a one-life judgment view, that leads them to take their choices seriously now.
If someone holds a longer-arc view, it still points them back to the same thing: your actions and your character matter.
Either way, the status ladder doesn’t help much in that final reckoning.
So in the spirit of this post:
Strip away the labels.
Strip away the ranks.
What’s left is the person.
That’s the part that counts.