Sunday, July 1, 2018

Sophistication is all in the mind

"Please be ready on time this Friday evening," my wife said to me, a few weeks ago. "There'll be a lot of sophisticated people there." She was reminding me of a get together we were invited to.
"So I guess jeans won't cut it then?" I asked hesitantly.
"Jeans?" She gave me one of those looks. She walked away, shaking her head. "And be prepared to slow dance at the party," she added.

The words "slow dance" are enough to make any grown man cringe. Regular dance, I can handle. You shake a leg, move an arm and the dim lights with the flashing strobe takes care of the rest. "Slow Dance" is a different animal altogether.

What does sophistication really mean? Am I sophisticated? I guess its the people I know, people I work with and my friends who should decide whether I am or not. Well, one catch here though - the person who makes that judgment, better be sophisticated too.

So what makes people sophisticated? Is it the way you dress? The way you converse? Education? A bit of everything might be the right answer. It's a universally accepted fact that having a lot of money makes you wealthy, but not necessarily sophisticated.

I think every section of society, every social circle, sets its own bar regarding the threshold of crossing into their own elite world of sophistication. We are all drawn towards that world instinctively as we grow in years. Consciously trying to act sophisticated never works. Here's how the dictionary defines sophistication :

"Having acquired worldly knowledge or refinement; lacking natural simplicity or naiveté."

Anyway, I survived the "Sophisticated" party by just being myself. There were no major gaffes on my part and I tried to blend in with the elite crowd. And yes, the slow dance..... it was bit of a challenge. I just pretended I was ice-skating, but in slow motion.

"Sophistication is not how you look in fancy clothes, but how the clothes look on you. Its not about how much expensive jewelry you carry on your body, but how you carry yourself. Its not about how much money you make, but how humble money has made you."