Tim Willard: Why we put on a veneer

Tim Willard, author of Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society, is interviewed by Dan King, Social Media Editor for TheHighCalling.org.

Dan King: I love how you define veneer, kind of comparing it to flooring---it's made to look like wood, but it isn't really wood at all. It's got this false appearance to kind of make people think it's something else, rather than what it is. People do the same things in our own lives. Why do you think we put on a veneer like this?

Tim: That's a good question. I guess early on, when Jason and I were talking about that specifically, we were seeing the veneer in our own lives, or in people, the church, and all kinds of culture. We were critiquing it, but when we broke it down and saw why we do this, we kind of boiled it down to a relational deficiency that we have. I mean we all want to be accepted, we want to be acknowledged, and we want to have some kind of a success in life. I think because we see what the world projects as success, we kind of measure ourselves against it like, "WOW, I've got to at least reach this right here, and I've got to hide what may be embarrassing or what may not be acceptable." And so we put a veneer on just to make ourselves look and feel better.

Dan: Yeah! That's crazy. And, I know like we were talking about before this interview started, we run into that at work where people want to put on a certain image at work to achieve certain levels of success. It's not as much about the work you can actually do, but sometimes even how you look ant present yourself to others.

Tim: That's a good comment. I think probably in the workplace, everyone can relate to that, because there's pressures to produce, depending on what kind of you do. If you're in your (Tim's) field, or even my field, where I'm dealing with writers, authors, and leaders---there's a look that you see. I was at a conference this spring, talking to a friend of mine, and he said, "Look around---don't you see 'the look,' the conference look, like everyone is putting on their best airs or whatever. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but you're right---we want to kind of project this thing that we have it together and are successful. In the workplace that can translate into like "Hey, I've got to look the part," even though what you do is actually looked at second---it's kind of unfortunate.

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