98/100 This Is a Stupid Idea and Should Be Stopped
On Bottles of Water and People’s Worth
You’ve probably already seen it if you’re on LinkedIn recently, but now it’s made its way to TikTok which means it’s probably two months away from Instagram, etc., and the thread of this disaster only growing.
There is a very stupid idea out there right now, and I’m here today hate on it with all the hate it deserves.
Because it’s a shitty idea, I’m not going to quote it verbatim, instead I will merely reference that:
- A bottle of water will cost $2 in place A
- The same bottle of water will cost $3 in place B
- The same bottle of water will cost $4 in place C
- The same bottle of water will cost $5 in place D (airport, it always ends at airport)
- Thus, if are undervalued leave the place
Ok, so, let’s open this up a bit. Firstly, this appears to be true because it is sometimes good advice to leave “your situation” for “something better.” Such advice is given, such advice literally is true from time to time.
The trap is realizing the method of arriving at this and understanding what it means by leaving the place that undervalues you.
The danger is this: humans are not water bottles, we do in fact have innate value. This is a gross and stupid way to talk about people.
This whole thing about “people are not water bottles” might seem like an obvious statement. Clearly, we are not literally water bottles. But this language goes back to what I was saying in my Ethiopia series and how pumpkins are not chapels.
It is the wisdom of the metaphor that bridges the likeness of one thing to the next. The drab, tastelessness of water is extended to us as human beings. Realize for a moment what a rich compliment it is to be called a bottle of water. I, for one, was touched when I first encountered this sage-ism.
But let us also realize that literally nothing is fairly priced at an airport. So, to whatever extent you could derive truth from price gouging, it is important to simply pause, not give the benefit of the doubt to this idea, and ask what the fuck are you talking about.
This is the cheapest, dumbest version of life advice I have ever seen. What’s the moral of the story? Don’t be a water bottle at CVS, be a water bottle at an airport? SHUT UP.
Whatever truth this bad story is trying to depart to anyone is not worth it by sheer virtue of its awful delivery. Even a sleepy platitude of “asserting yourself to leave a bad situation” would be much more based than a life lesson cranked out by thin plastic and, honestly, an ingenious marketing hack of bottled-freaking-water.
We deserve better ideas; this idea deserves to die.
More soon,
Trevor