Why do I run after gloss? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Question: Is it true that the society is influenced more by the gloss, more by the apparent, than the substance, the real?

Speaker: You can only know or see to the extent of your own intelligence, beyond that you will not be able to see. If I am superficial then I can only see what is superficial in you.

Appreciate this!

If I exist only at the surface level, only at the level of the apparent, then in you too I will only be able to see what is apparent. If I know myself only according to the kind of clothes I wear; if I wear good clothes I feel good about myself and if I don’t wear good clothes I do not feel so good about myself then that is what I will do with you also. If I find you wearing good clothes then I will say “you are wonderful” and if I find you wearing something ordinary then I will think very ordinary of you.

I will only see what I am.

The fact that the society can see no further, no deeper than the very superficial is a clear indication of the kind of individuals it is having in the society. After all the society is nothing but the individuals in it. Most people are trained, educated, conditioned by their upbringing, by this entire education system to look only at that which is right there on the surface. They have no understanding