Life vs. lifestyle Part II

Kirk wrote me about my lifestyle vs. life blog.

Lifestyle to me is a section in the newspapers or a program about the rich and famous. It involves more the exterior life of a person, what drives that person. A life is the interior part.

There are those that are driven by exterior forces and those that are driven by interior factors.

I would say Paris Hilton has a lifestyle. Mary Robinson, Nelson Mandala have lives to look at opposite ends of the scale. However, most of us do not reach either those ends of the spectrum of consumerism gone mad to self-sacrifice for world improvement.

Although it is a marketing tool, VALS (Values and LifeStyles –yup that word) http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/types.shtml says it better than I can. There is test there that defines people. I have used it as a tool in my writing to try and answer the questions as one of my characters would to more deeply understand that character. As I thought about Kirk’s comment I went back to reread it.

Yes I would buy a fashionable dress because if I liked it. I would buy an unfashionable dress if I liked it. Or I might not buy a dress at all even if I liked it because I already have more clothes than I want or need. The operative is what I like not what others like. And that to me is the difference.